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 ~ BIBLICAL
HERMENEUTICS

Gerhard Maier

Translated from the German edition,

Biblische Hermeneutik

by Robert W. Yarbrough

CROSSWAY BOOKS * WHEATON, ILLINOIS

A DIVISION OF GOOD NEWS PUBLISHERS
Biblical Hermeneutics
First English edition. Copyright © 1994 by Gerhard Maier
Published by Crossway Books
a division of Good News Publishers
1300 Crescent Street
Wheaton, Illinois 60187
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form by any
means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording or otherwise,
without the prior permission of the publisher, except as provided
by USA copyright law.
Edited by Tom Raabe and Leonard G. Goss
Cover design: Bob Fuller Creative
Art Direction: Mark Schramm
First printing, 1994
Printed in the United States of America
Text: 11.2/15 Times Roman x 26
Bible quotations not marked NIV, NASB, RSV, etc. are translations
of the author’s own renderings of the Greek and Hebrew texts.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Maier, Gerhard, 1937-
[Biblische Hermeneutik. English]
Biblical hermeneutics / Gerhard Maier : translated by Robert W.
Yarbrough. — Ist English ed.
p. cm.
Translation of: Biblische Hermeneutik.
Includes bibliographical references and indexes.
1. Bible—Hermeneutics. I. Title.
BS476.M213 1994 220.6'01—dc20 93-42342
ISBN 0-89107-767-7

02 01 00 99 98 97 96 95 94
 TABLE OF

Contents

Translator’s Preface x1
Foreword to English-language Edition Xili
I. DEFINING THE HERMENEUTICAL TASK 15
Il. A SPECRAL BIBLICAL HERMENEUTIC? ps|
Reasons for a Special Biblical Hermeneutic
Objections to a Special Biblical Hermeneutic
Result
III. THE STARTING POINT OF HERMENEUTICS ge)
The Fundamental Alternative
Man as Starting Point
Revelation as Starting Point
IV. THEOLOGICAL HERMENEUTICS AS SCIENCE 32
The Independence of Theological Science
Relationship to Other Sciences
Result
V. THE INTERPRETER 45
Interpretation Without Presuppositions?
Congeniality?
Holy Spirit and Spiritual Rebirth?
The Answer of Revelation
Faith as Aid to Understanding
 The Difference Between the Regenerate and the
Unregenerate Interpreter
The Work of the Spirit on the Interpreter
Necessary Caution
VI. WAYS OF UNDERSTANDING REVELATION 65
Restriction to Historical Understanding
Opposing Tendencies
A Look at the History of Exegesis
Revelation as Starting Point
Dynamic Understanding
Ethical Understanding
Cognitive Understanding
Historical Understanding
Dogmatic Understanding
Typological Understanding
Allegorical Understanding
Prophetic Understanding
Reciprocal Relationship of the Various Ways of
Understanding
VII. THE INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE 97
A Dead Issue?
The Answer of Revelation
The Range of Revelation
Personal Inspiration
Inspiration of Ideas
Verbal Inspiration
Criticism of Verbal Inspiration
Entire Inspiration
The Relation Between Word of God and Word of Man
The Relation Between Inspiration and History
Errors of Scripture?
VIII. THE CANON 149
The History of the Canon
The Founding of the Canon
Revelation as Starting Point
Delimiting the Canon
 Questioning the Canon
The Canonical Connection of Interpretation
IX. THE AUTHORITY OF SCRIPTURE 165
The Question of the Basis for Scriptural Authority
Normative Authorities Along with Scripture
Possible Bases ‘or the Authority of Scripture
The Basis of the Authority of Scripture in Revelation
Extent and Consequences of the Authority of Scripture
Scripture as Sole Norma Normans (Normative
Standard)
Our Obedience as the Goal of Scripture
The Perspicuity of Scripture
Scripture Suffices for Salvation
X. THE UNITY OF SCRIPTURE 187
Survey of Church History
The Revelatory Starting Point
The Basis of the Unity of Scripture
Unity and the Progressive Nature of Revelation
The Unity of Scripture and Salvation-Historical
Interpretation
Scripture’s Unity and Center
Unity and Harmonization
XI. THE HISTORICAL NATURE (HISTORICALITY)
OF SCRIPTURE 209
The Problem of Scripture’s Historical Nature
(Historicality)
The Relation of Faith and History
The Attempt to Separate Faith and History
The Revelatory Starting Point
The Attempt to Dissolve Faith into History
Revelation and Bare Fact
Revelation and Miracle
Revelation and Prophecy
Revelation, Chronology, and Numbers
In What Sense is the Bible Historical?
XII. REVELATION AND CRITICISM 247
Defining Historical Criticism
 An “Intellectual Destiny’’?
The Danger of Moralistic Judgments
The History of Historical Criticism
Criticism of Criticism
The Critical Element
The Historical Element
The Sources of Historical Criticism
The Starting Point of Historical Criticism
The Loss of the Bible’s Authority in Historical Criticism
The Loss of the Doctrine of Inspiration in Historical
Criticism ,
Historical Criticism’s Mistrust of the Supernatural
The Preeminence of Human Judgment in Historical
Criticism
The Separation of Scripture and Revelation in Historical
Criticism
Historical Criticism as Content Criticism
The Incompatibility of Historical Criticism and
Revelation
XII. REVELATION AND METHOD 307
Two Irreconcilable Entities?
Key Questions of Pneumatic Exegesis
Starting Points of Pneumatic Exegesis
Pneumatic Exegesis’ Unfolding in Karl
Girgensohn
Continuance of Pneumatic Exegesis in Procksch
and Oepke
The Pneumatic Exegesis of Hellmuth Frey
Present Criticisms of Method
Methodical Interpretation of Scripture in Jesus and the
Early Church
Inner Reasons for the Necessity of a Method
Possibilities of a Methodical Interpretation of Scripture
Precritical Scripture Interpretation
J. G. Hamann
J. L. S. Lutz and J. T. Beck
Adolf Schlatter
 J. C. K. von Hofmann
Pneumatic Exegesis
Scholarly Fundamentalism
So-called Moderate Criticism
XIV. DEVELOPING A BIBLICAL-HISTORICAL INTERPRETATION 375
Terminology
Importance of the Term Historical
Procedural Openness and Constraints
The Setting of a Biblical-Historical Interpretation
The Biblical Text as Starting Point
Opening Up the Text
Synthetic Interpretation
Communicative Interpretation
Final Comment
Appendix 411
Bibliography (with abbreviations used in endnotes) 413
Endnotes 449
Scripture Index 507
Author Index S17
Subject Index 23
 ‘Translator’s Preface

he completion of this project is due to timely help from a number

of people. Jiirgen and Franziska Schwarz of Wilhelmsdorf,
Germany, made valuable suggestions on early chapters and furnished
translations of a number of Latin and French quotations. Eckhard
Schnabel, Bergneustadt, Germany, solved a vexing riddle concerning J.
T. Beck’s dialect. More locally, Vicki Barrs put her considerable com-
mand of French at my disposal at a strategic juncture. V. Philips Long
likewise gave generously of his time on sabbatical to read the entire
manuscript in both the original and translation. Dan Doriani helped
enlarge my hermeneutical understanding, and therefore translational
capacity, with his own literary and historiographical observations about
some of Maier’s proposals.
Tim Phillips, Wheaton College Graduate School, cheerfully
decoded numerous Latin quotations that were inaccessible to me. Iam
grateful for his competent readiness to tackle someone else’s problems
on short notice. My former teacher, J. Julius Scott, Jr., also of Wheaton,
first introduced me to the formal study of hermeneutics over a decade
ago; he deserves a word of thanks for piquing an interest that has never
waned since. Helmut Ziefle of the Wheaton College foreign language
department lent generous assistance with an enigmatic Luther quote.
Lane Dennis of Crossway Books and Jan Dennis, now with
Thomas Nelson, had the vision to arrange for an Anglophone edition of
xii @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

Maier’s study. Crossway Books is to be commended for their continu-

ing dedication to the publication of quality scholarly and literary works.
Covenant Theological Seminary provided necessary computer and
other logistical support. I am grateful to the trustees as well as to
President Paul Kooistra and Dean Bryan Chapell for their encourage-
ment. Students at Covenant Seminary kindly showed interest in the con-
tent of this book as its hold on my thinking surfaced in courses that may
or may not have had anything to do with hermeneutics.
Professor Maier has been magnanimous and patient in correspon-
dence over many months. I am deeply grateful to have had this oppor-
tunity to benefit from interaction with his insights and scholarship.
Finally, my wife and two sons were encouragingly solicitous about
the state of both translation and translator as work progressed. To them
I dedicate my small effort in this aspect of Professor Maier’s ministry
by way of thanks.
 _ . Foreword to
English-language
Edition

|Dteenies Hermeneutics grew out of long-term involvement in the

modern theological-hermeneutical discussion.
I had my first formative experience in the encounter with critical
theological hermeneutics when I switched to theological studies after
completing training in the field of law. At that time practically everyone
in German theology was speaking of the “significance” of this or that
biblical account. At the same time the “facticity” of those accounts was
widely denied. As a lawyer I had learned that the facts must be ascer-
tained before their significance can be assessed. In German Protestant
theology the procedure was precisely the reverse. But is such spiritual-
izing legitimate? Can the historicity of the Christian message be placed
in question and its authority and significance still upheld?
A second far-reaching experience was the transition from pastoral
work to academic theological instruction. As a pastor, in entirely nor-
mal circumstances with neither charismatic nor other unusual factors at
work, I had preached and prayed, shared people’s awakening to faith,
observed the effectiveness of God’s Word, and learned increasingly to
the trust that Word. The “critical” vantage point of theology in the six-
xiv @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

ties and seventies, however, stood diametrically opposed to this bur-

geoning trust. Now, which basic posture was correct? Trust or doubt?
Confidence or skepticism?
Striking connections and confirmations of the biblical reports
became evident in that moment when I honestly and openly wrestled
with the possibility that the biblical Word—even with respect to histor-
ical events—could be true. This was not the world of legends, of con-
trivances, of falsifications. Rather Idetected here “the scent of truth,” as
Wolfgang Schadewaldt once put it. I therefore opted for a basic posture
of trust, of remaining open to the possibility that the biblical reports are
reliable. All my subsequent work followed from this basic posture.
I would like to pose this question to those who prefer a different
position: How can we remain Christians when we call biblical revela-
tion in doubt? How is God’s voice supposed to remain perceptible when
we subject everything to the violent constraints of explanation based on
the purely immanent?
It may be that the great upswing of historical interest that the
Enlightenment brought with it is beginning to ebb. In this situation there
remains a twofold task. First, against long-standing and still virulent ten-
dencies of modernity we must speak confidently of the history of God’s
dealings with mankind. Second, at the same time we must take to heart
that the Bible can mediate encounter with God at many levels—not only
at the historical. A communicative hermeneutic, a hermeneutic of
encounter, seems essential at the present time. ‘Yet this encounter with
God will flourish only where the Bible is permitted to be no less than
what God intends: namely, the Word of God.
I express my deeply felt thanks to Dr. Robert Yarbrough, Covenant
Theological Seminary, St. Louis, for shouldering the load of translating,
thereby giving English-speaking readers access to this book and the dis-
cussion in which it is rooted.

Tubingen
20 April 1993
Gerhard Maier
 é ‘ CHAPTER ONE

Defining the
Hermeneutical Task

|ilfe eel what do we mean by that word? What is the basic

aim of “hermeneutics’’? These are the primary questions that must
be answered at the outset of this book.
Over the course of history hermeneutics has been defined in count-
less different ways. In ancient Greek hermeneuein means to impart or
convey. This can denote a “simple” oral translation. Even in such a “sim-
ple” act, however, there are two components constantly involved: #1) the
correct conception, and #2) the correct representation of that which
needs to be conveyed.' This already suggests the two basic possible
meanings of “hermeneutics.” While the second component, understood
as a skillful interpretation, has tended to dominate the discussion in the
English-speaking world,’ German thought has observed an increasing
focus on the act of understanding itself. Clearly the first component has
been dominant in German-speaking circles. We are therefore confronted
at the outset with a decision. Because of our ties with the history of the-
ology in its continental European form, we concern ourselves below pri-
marily with component #1) above: the correct conception. To borrow
16 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

from F. Liicke, we will be concerned with a “science of the first princi-

ples of a theory of exegesis, along with the act of exegesis itself?”
Plato was presumably the first to strike out in this direction. In any
case he uses the formula he hermeneutike techne (literally “the art of
interpreting’’) to denote “the art of correctly apprehending something’”
This characterization of hermeneutics as an “art” then persists through
the centuries. Dilthey’s definition of hermeneutics eventually became
famous: “the theory of the art of understanding textually fixed living
utterances,” or again, “the theory of the art of the interpretation of tex-
tual monuments.” As one can see, Dilthey concentrates on written texts.
Christian exegetes tend to proceed in an even more restricted fashion
than the philosophers. Thus Mussner explains that hermeneutics is the
“theory of the understanding of a text.’* Schleiermacher, however, whose
heir Dilthey understood himself to be,’ spoke of the “art” of “correctly
understanding the speech of another, primarily in its written form.”
If hermeneutics came to be restricted to texts, a further develop-
ment is no less interesting. Since the eighteenth century the concept of
“scientific” has insinuated itself more and more into definitions of
hermeneutics. Semler (1725-91) praised his teacher Baumgarten for
producing “the first German scientific outline of hermeneutics”?
Bultmann, who placed himself in the Schleiermacher-Dilthey heritage,"
defined hermeneutics as “the art of scientific understanding?”'!
Since, however, science itself is based on presuppositions and pre-
sents the outcome rather than the presupposition of understanding, we
are operating here in an unfruitful circle. Harnack could still speak of
the “pure knowledge of the object” as the goal to be striven for.”
In the meantime, both Protestant and Catholic thinkers have come
to concur that interpretation and understanding can “never” take place
“without presuppositions.’ Basically, therefore, nothing is gained by
the designation “scientific.”
Such various authors as Liicke, Heinrici, and Torm make use of the
concept of “theory” as part of their definitions. Heinrici formulates it
this way: hermeneutics is “the theory of the interpretation of that which
 DEFINING THE HERMENEUTICAL TASK @ 17

has been handed down:’"* The danger this entails is best seen in Liicke;
he defines biblical hermeneutics as “the true theory of the concept and
practice of exegesis.”'> Its content is “the study of the laws and rules
according to which the sense of an utterance or writing should be inter-
preted.”'* Here, however, hermeneutics runs the risk of becoming a ster-
ile application of rules, and the interpreter is tempted as a skilled
theoretician to want to understand everything.
To what extent is it even possible, however, to understand some-
one else? The history of hermeneutics yields somewhat astonishing
answers to this question. Both Schleiermacher and Dilthey were con-
vinced that the interpreter might well be able to understand an utterance
better than its own author. “The task,” says Schleiermacher, “is to be
expressed as follows: to understand an utterance at first as well as, and
then better than, its author.’” Dilthey reiterates: “The ultimate aim of the
hermeneutical process is to understand the author better than he under-
stood himself?’'*
How is that possible? Dilthey explains that this follows from “‘the
doctrine of unconscious creation,’’? Behind the person of the author
stands a greater “It” which speaks and acts through him. One senses
behind this conception the outlook of German idealism and the belief
in a world spirit.
Here two central questions arise, both important for defining
hermeneutics. The first question runs: what is it, really, that we are try-
ing to understand? Should hermeneutics “lead to the understanding of
the human personality” of the author? Torm, who advocates this view,
states very clearly that if this is the case, then an “inexplicable remain-
der” still persists. Here he cites Plato’s Gorgias: oudeis heteros heterou
tauto ennoei (‘No one thinks just the same way as anybody else’’).”° Or
is our task rather to comprehend and set forth the concrete life utterance
(text, etc.), ie., to practice an ars interpretandi (interpretative art) as
suggested by Dannhauer, among others??' Or must we enter the world
on the other side of the text, as e.g. Ricoeur suggests? He has reduced
his concern to the statement: “‘Not what is said, but about what it is said”
18 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

is the object of hermeneutics.” The text opens up to us a “text world.”

The key matter is “the sort of world intended beyond the text as its ref-
erence.” It is clear that such a conception is attractive for those theo-
logians who follow Karl Barth in distinguishing between revelation
itself and the Bible as a mere “witness of God’s revelation.”™
If, however, the focal point of interpretation lies on the other side
of the text, then a second question arises: how is an overweening sub-
jectivity in the understanding process to be controlled? As with our first
two questions, we are in no position here to furnish a comprehensive
answer. It suffices at this preliminary stage to see the problem. In recent
decades a battle has raged over this subjectivity. Here we must come
back to Ricoeur once more; his ultimate aim is indeed an altered self-
understanding in a process of participation and distanciation with
respect to the world of the text.** Thus hermeneutics becomes a contri-
bution to the interpreter’s personal self. But if 1am #1) dependent on an
appropriate understanding of that which lies on the other side of the text,
and #2) caught up into an exchange with this “text world” that continu-
ally alters me, then subjective factors end up playing a decisive role.
How can one ever arrive, then, at that “universal validity in interpreta-
tion” with which Dilthey wrestled?
Interestingly enough, it is most of all nontheologians who have
been at pains to secure objectivity in the process of understanding. Betti
is a good example. He interacts aggressively with existentialist inter-
preters, especially Bultmann and Gadamer, reproaching them for losing
objectivity. Their hermeneutic, charges Betti, is “determined by its con-
tent” from the outset; it no longer permits any “hermeneutical autonomy
of the object’’” Although they strove for a hermeneutic of “consent to
the subject matter” of the text (a favorite theme of Gadamer), their
understanding changed into a “monologue.” For his part, Betti is con-
vinced of the possibility of objective knowledge. He wants to attain this
through linking “subordination” (objective element) with “recreating
that which becomes one’s own possession” (subjective element).”°
Surprisingly, just like Bultmann or Dilthey, his starting point is “the
 DEFINING THE HERMENEUTICAL TASK @ 19

great Schleiermacher.’° No less than Betti, who was a historian, the

philosopher Spranger commits himself to the objectivity of the under-
standing process. A striking similarity is thereby exposed between
Spranger and Betti. That is, they both presuppose an “objective spirit”
and the “common humanity” that permits such a common understand-
ing.*'! Spranger’s appeal to Hegel and Plato? makes it clear that we are
dealing here as well with the heritage of German idealism. And just as
Betti dissociates himself from existentialist interpretation, Spranger dis-
sociates himself from Kierkegaard.** He seeks rather to build on the uni-
versal human “consciousness of truth’’* Precisely this makes the
essential objectivity possible. At this point Spranger refers to Ranke: “TI
wished, so to speak, to obliterate myself. . . ?”
As the struggle for objectivity of understanding teaches us, it mat-
ters a great deal whether or not in the other person “the same human
spirit” speaks “to us’’* The biblical interpreter, however, falls into a
predicament here. For the Bible, which it is his task to interpret, makes
a claim directly contrary to the thesis that “the same human spirit”
speaks “to us.” It is rather the case that here, in the Bible, God wants to
talk with us! For that reason Oepke formulated the “central problem of
biblical hermeneutics” in this way: “How can the human word of a time
long since vanished be understood as God’s word to the present?” Can
this “central problem” be solved by excluding the word of God in the
Bible, strictly limiting interpretation to “the human speech, the human
testimony about God, not God himself”?** That would be an attractive
possibility. In that way we would come to an understanding of the
human author, to an enrichment of our own possibilities of understand-
ing, and more besides. As we will see, however, this solution is ruled out,
since it stands in direct contradiction to the self-understanding of the
biblical witnesses. We appear to have arrived, then, at a dead end.
A first way out of this dead end opens up if we consciously restrict
ourselves to the understanding of the Bible as we seek the definition and
task of hermeneutics. Here we are not denying that hermeneutics as such
is at home in numerous scientific areas, e.g. jurisprudence, philology,
20 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

philosophy, aesthetics, and psychology.*? But understanding and inter-

pretation of the Bible have to do with the unique case: they encounter a
message that has taken written form, and the message appears with a
unique demand. For it claims that here, and here alone, God speaks reli-
ably.” At this point we concur even with Ricoeur: “It is a unique case
because all its partial forms of discourse are referred to that name which
is... the name of the unnameable.”' We begin to build the case, there-
fore, for a special biblical hermeneutic which we will later ground more
fully. On the basis of our reflections thus far we can now assert this
much: our task consists in understanding the Bible of the Old and New
Testaments commensurate with their own claim. A biblical hermeneu-
tic serves this task in that it establishes the leading lines that correspond
to this claim and form the foundation of interpretation.’
 : . CHAPTER TWO

A Special Biblical
Hermeneutic?

hould there be a special “biblical hermeneutic” (hermeneutica

sacra)? For centuries this question has provoked controversy. Some
answer in the affirmative, while others are adamantly opposed. These
contrasting opinions are not easily relegated to different theological
camps. The thesis, for example, that all German Pietists affirm a
hermeneutica sacra is simply false. A special biblical hermeneutic is
rejected by theologians of quite various stripes, among them Baur,
Harnack, Hofmann, Lutz, and Schleiermacher:'

REASONS FOR A SPECIAL BIBLICAL HERMENEUTIC

1. In favor of a special biblical hermeneutic is, first, the observation that
the Bible—if what it says is true even to a small degree—is the most
unusual and unique object there is. It is incomparable. There is nothing
else like it in all of world literature. No other work can compare with
the prophetic array of sixty-six books hailing from various centuries, all
furnishing a pregiven framework pointing to the one God and the one
Messiah. The Koran is either imitation or future speculation. In the
22 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

Bible, however, the fulfillment of prophecy is reported at the same time.

In this Bible the unique and incomparable claim is raised that only here
God speaks in written form.’ In this respect the Bible is less tolerant than
the Koran.
Should this Bible be handled like any other book? Should it “be
studied according to the very same methods” as the other “religions’’??
This would amount to the hermeneutical surrender of its singularity. In
Girgensohn’s formulation: “The foremost law of all scientific thought
is unconditional respect for reality in its givenness in all its forms of
manifestation.’”* When a unique reality confronts us, then such uncon-
ditional respect requires that we approach it in a unique fashion. This is
exactly what Droysen called for when he wrote, “All empirical research
regulates itself according to the facts to which it devotes itself?’
Accordingly, “every method” is “determined by its object.”
We would be giving up this basic principle of all cognition if we
studied the Bible just like any other book. Torm is correct, then, when
he writes that “the content of the New Testament. . . [is] so unusual that
a special handling of New Testament hermeneutics proves to be fruit-
ful, also in view of the content; for . . . the more specialized the crafting
of a hermeneutic, the more productive it will be?”’ Later we will demon-
strate to what extent a specialized biblical hermeneutic is more fruitful
than a general one.
2. In favor of a special biblical hermeneutic is, second, the obser-
vation that the biblical writers seek consciously to recede into the back-
ground. They point away from themselves to God as the author of their
message. They spare no effort in putting God before the reader. God,
however, is the Entirely Other (Eccl 5:2). It is not feasible to want to
retain accustomed categories of understanding and thinking when deal-
ing with this God.
This principle finds application in a number of directions. We can
no longer, e.g., take as a starting point that that which is uttered in alien
individuality “is also contained in the comprehending [= interpreting]
living entity’’* God is not “alien individuality” in the normal sense of
 A SPECIAL BIBLICAL HERMENEUTIC? @ 23

those words; he is our creator and sustainer. Nor is it permissible to

equate in principle the one who speaks (God) with the one who hears
(man).
We can, then, also no longer trust our own reason. Spranger had
declared it as “in the nature of the case impossible to erect a science on
the basis of the consciousness of sin instead of on the basis of the con-
sciousness of truth’ He concluded with this dogmatic assertion: “We
believe that today we cannot lead a life of high intellectual and ethical
integrity apart from the pervasive illumination of science and the purg-
ing fire of its purifying flames.”? In light of the Bible, however, man is a
sinner, and his reason and science are radically affected by this. It is
rather God whose “purging fire” purifies man—if he harks to God’s acti-
vating voice (Isa 6:5ff.). We cannot evade the fact that centuries of inter-
action with the Bible lead again and again to the conclusion that reason
is “in no sense the source from which the knowledge of saving truths
flow to man.’ Luther was right, therefore, in rejecting humanism and
faith in reason."'
The Bible likewise transforms the usual modern concept of history.
In the Bible’s view all history unfolds under God’s planning and direc-
tion. He created the “arena of history,’ creation itself. He created the
movement of history, time. He made man to be an entity inhabiting his-
tory. History is always that which proceeds from God. Still today the
Bible proclaims “an activity of God with us that extends his effective
influence into this history’ That means the end of a purely immanent
conception of history. At the same time it means the end of purely
mechanical-causal explanation." It is noteworthy that even historians
distance themselves from purely mechanical-causal explanation.
Droysen, e.g., in 1843 outlined a “theology of history” and saw the high-
est task of historical science in theodicy."*
If purely mechanical-causal explanation is not viable, the domi-
nant positivistic and rationalistic concept of science is unusable for a
hermeneutic that is applied to the Bible. “Modern science,’ says
Gadamer, “follows . . . the principle of Cartesian doubt, accepting noth-
24 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

ing as certain that admits of any doubt whatsoever.”'* True, lively protest
is presently underway against Cartesianism.'* But the accustomed, shal-
low Cartesian intellectual starting point is still commonly found in the-
ology.” Systematic doubt is, however, the most inappropriate procedure
imaginable for dealing with the Bible. Girgensohn once cited three prin-
ciples of modern science: #1) “the autonomy of human reason,’ #2) “the
principle of immanent explanation,’ and #3) “the bias in favor of a
mechanistic-causal explanation of reality:’”'* He himself sees the bibli-
cal proclamation as standing “‘in direct contradiction to the fundamen-
tal tendencies of scientific procedure?’’’ Mark carefully: today these
tendencies are under examination and at times siege.” But to the extent
that they continue to be influential, we must reject them as unusable.
Theology is science sui generis, because it deals with the living biblical
God.?' The struggle to establish such independence characterizes e.g.
Liicke’s grand scheme, in which he sought to escape “merely human sci-
ence” and demanded a “biblical hermeneutic’’”
3. In favor of a special biblical hermeneutic is, third, the observa-
tion that the Bible sets up a singular, unmistakable relation between God
and the interpreter. Later we will develop the view that an interpreta-
tion without the Holy Spirit cannot be a correct interpretation. For now
we simply state that the Bible intends a transformation of the interpreter
and his existence.
This intended transformation of the interpreter includes, however,
the interpreter’s obedience. Procksch characterizes this obedience as an
act of submission. He sees the battle between God and man taking place
in the very act of biblical interpretation. Understanding does not emerge
from this battle until submission occurs.” In addition to submission,
Procksch also speaks of “faith in Christ’’* Oepke argues along the same
lines. He holds that “the special quality of the biblical text lies precisely
in that it demands a decision from the hearer?” ,
Decision, faith, obedience, transformation in view of our salva-
tion—these are all goals that transcend a general hermeneutic and once
 A SPECIAL BIBLICAL HERMENEUTIC? © 25

again suggest a special biblical hermeneutic. In this sense Ricoeur is

correct to state: “The event is our master?2*
4. In favor of a special biblical hermeneutic is, fourth, the insolu-
ble difficulties into which the interpreter unavoidably falls.
True, every hermeneutic has ongoing problems, tensions, and
unsatisfactory features. In addition to this, however, the attempt to
understand the Bible possesses the character of a risk whose successful
outcome is attended by unavoidable difficulties.
“Every interpreter presupposes something prior to taking up the
task,’ wrote Gustaf Wingren years ago in his essay “The Question of
Methods in Theology.” Actually, we have seen that a “‘presupposition-
less” exegesis presents “a phantom, a self-deception,”* Yet it is precisely
our presuppositions that the Bible wants to place in question, correct,
and to some extent obliterate. One of the difficulties cited above is this:
I as a human can never work without presuppositions and must at the
same time constantly realize that my presuppositions are shaped by sin.
A further difficulty consists in the encounter between incompara-
ble persons. Ultimately the Bible is, indeed, a medium of encounter
rather than a collection of neutral information. In this exchange one of
the encountered parties, man, does not know who he is. “We do not
know what man is,” runs one of C. G. Jung’s insightful observations.”
Much less does man know who God is. “God is in heaven / and you are
on earth” (Eccl 5:2 NIV). “No one has ever seen God” (Jn 1:18 NIV).
How can encounter take place under such conditions? Bultmann was
convinced that we can, with the help of philosophy, know who man is—
indeed, “man can very probably know who God is, i.e. in asking the
God-question.””° This is surely a totally erroneous assessment.
Where, then, does the “point of connection” lie in that encounter?
With this question we take aim at an additional difficulty. To the extent
that we are dealing with understanding, human thought is challenged.
On the one hand, man’s reason is depraved, according to ecclesiastical
and biblical teaching. On the other hand, reason must possess at least
the gift of hearing. For this reason, dogmatic theologians of past cen-
26 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

turies are ambivalent in their assessments of reason. As “the intellectual

capacity for apprehension” it is to be regarded positively.*! There is no
question, however, of it being a building block for a harmonious rela-
tionship with God. These viewpoints collide head-on. So here, too, there
remains a fundamental insoluble difficulty.
During the Deist controversy in England, the question was posed
sharply how historical events, which happened once and can never be
repeated, could possibly be the vehicle of a universally valid revelation.”
This question later generated debate in Germany through Lessing’s for-
mulation regarding “accidental truths of history” and “necessary truths
of reason.”®? The relationship, however, between revelation and history,
between the historically particular and the universally valid, also ranks
among the difficulties that no biblical interpreter can fully overcome. In
itself the “revelation of the unconditioned [i.e., God] in historically con-
ditioned form’ would seem to require a separation between revelation
and its manifestation. We will see, however, that this solution is not a
viable way out. Thus, study of the Bible encounters yet another unavoid-
able difficulty at this point.
The observations (1-4) we have just made compel us to affirm a
special “biblical hermeneutic.” It should be noted yet again that we are
not abandoning the discussion of hermeneutics as it is carried on in
jurisprudential hermeneutics, philosophical hermeneutics, and in other
areas. On the contrary, we will discover numerous overlaps and simi-
larities. We would be closing our eyes to reality, however, if we were to
deny the exceptional character of the divine revelation found in the Bible
by seeking to subordinate understanding of the biblical message to some
subfield of “normal” hermeneutics as generally applied.

OBJECTIONS TO A SPECIAL BIBLICAL HERMENEUTIC

Two objections require sifting at this point. The first was brought for-
ward by Harnack, among others, and asserts “that one constantly dis-
tances himself farther and farther from the pure knowledge of the
 A SPECIAL BIBLICAL HERMENEUTIC? @ 27

object’”’*> when one seeks to apply a hermeneutica sacra. Harnack’s

objection was sharpened, in part, by the insistence that a hermeneutica
sacra was historically untenable. In response to Harnack, we hardly
need to rehearse the fact here that there simply is no “pure knowledge
of the object”—and there never has been. Furthermore, a hermeneutica
sacra is at least as tenable and fruitful, historically speaking, as a
hermeneutica profana (secular hermeneutic). It must be especially
emphasized here, however, that the “object,” the Bible itself, demands a
special hermeneutic. The person who, for the sake of a universal
hermeneutic, obliterates the claim to once-for-all-ness and uniqueness
found in the biblical revelation distances himself much further from the
so-called object than the advocate of a special hermeneutic.
A second objection bears greater weight. Are we not arbitrarily
carving up reality as a unified entity, the solitary order ordained by the
Creator, when we place a biblical hermeneutic alongside the customary
hermeneutic used elsewhere, special knowledge alongside universal? Or
to put it more sharply: are we not then guilty of pious disobedience?**
Answer: creation has long been torn by the Fall (see Ge 3). A rift has
entered the scene. The thesis that one ought to apprehend the world
using a unified knowledge dismisses the effects of the Fall at a crucial
juncture. For the communication of the Creator with his creation has
been disturbed at its most important point: the relationship with persons.
Precisely for this reason the Creator appears as a stranger to fallen man.
“He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him”
(Jn 1:11 NIV). The revelation comes from the One with whom we once
had fellowship; it seeks to restore us to that fellowship. But that is why
it seems alien in the present world. “Who has believed our message / and
to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?” (Isa 53:1 NIV). A new,
special understanding is necessary to overcome the alienation of a
world to whom God has become a stranger.
With the name “biblical hermeneutic” we take up a designation
that has been used by Baumgarten, Dilthey, Gadamer, Heinrici,
Hofmann, Keil, Liicke, Moldaenke (regarding Flacius), Mussner, and
28 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

Oepke.” According to Dobschiitz the concept of “hermeneutics”

“appears to be an invention of the pseudo-classicism of the 17th cen-
tury.’ He observes it first in Joh. Conr. Dannhauer in Strassburg (1654).**

RESULT
Despite a few misgivings, it seems to us that the name “biblical
hermeneutics” is still the most appropriate and usable name available.
 v CHAPTER THREE

The Starting Point of

Hermeneutics

THE FUNDAMENTAL ALTERNATIVE

We would contradict our previous deliberations if we located the start-

ing point of hermeneutics in the listening person. The most significant
hermeneutical decision is probably whether we take revelation itself or
man as our starting point.

MAN AS STARTING POINT

At least since René Descartes’ Discours de la méthode (1637), “the

thinking self has moved to the center of the universe,’ as Scholder stated
it.'| The thinking self is the Archimedean point from which all else is
judged. Outside of the thinking self, however, nothing is certain.
Tradition that is passed along must be tested. Two corollaries follow: #1)
as a matter of principle a “break with tradition” and all its conventional
claims to authority,’ and #2) “the principle of universal doubt,” with
which truth can first be discovered. Even if Descartes finally remained
convinced that God exists, it was still human reason that proved his exis-
30 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

tence.‘ The Cartesian turn in thought is more decisive than the

Copernican. For from Descartes on, the idea of “truth” was bound pri-
marily to reason and no longer to revelation. The consequence became
clear first among natural scientists. They experienced God’s revelation
not only in the Holy Scriptures but also in nature. Galileo held that one
could not be deceived by natural processes, but might be deceived by
Holy Scripture. For that reason the Scripture must be interpreted on the
basis of the findings of natural science.’ The principle established itself:
“Non tam autoritate quae nihil valet apud eos qui ratione duci volunt,
quam necessariis argumentis” (“Not on the basis of authority, then,
which is worthless for those wishing to give reason its due, but rather
through the necessary arguments”’).° Out of the certainty of reason grew
the “pathos of truth’”’ Kepler and La Peyréres reverse the principle: “At
magis mihi veritas” (“Truth is what means more to me’’).* How great a
shift this represents from, e.g., the older humanism of that era is seen by
recalling that Erasmus (1466?-1536) still described theology as the
mother of all sciences.°
From this time on a demanding battle for the reconciliation of
both—reason and revelation—sets in for those unwilling to give up the
Holy Scripture. Here authors are guided by a number of concerns,
including a desire to exclude the notion of twofold truth (i.e., reason and
revelation) in favor of the unity of knowledge." Isaac de la Peyréres
championed the slogan “Per hanc rursus positionem conciliatur fides
cum recta ratione” (“Through this approach, the faith is again reconciled
with correct reason’’).'' This could be achieved in the manner of Spinoza
by making God and nature into one.'"? Much more recently Schelling still
advocated this approach: “deus est res cunctas” (“‘God is all things’’)."
Or one could proceed from the unity that Scripture and nature, reason
and revelation, find in the one God who created them both. So runs the
formulation of Balthasar Bekker: “Et deus tam rationis quam revelatio-
nis autor” (“God is the creator of both reason and revelation’’).'* We can
pass over the related battle waged in England centering most of all on
the “Reasonableness of Christianity’’’ as well as on the problem of mir-
 THE STARTING POINT OF HERMENEUTICS @ 31

acles.'° In any case the result was that German theology fell under strong
English influence.” Wolff guaranteed “reason the right to have a deci-
sive equal voice in matters of faith’'* He sought “to join reason and rev-
elation together, for without this combination they will contradict each
other.” Unless the two are equally yoked, they will be pulling in oppo-
site directions.
Increasingly, the major emphasis is placed on reason. Gottsched
could say: “I abide, then, by that which is most certain, which is what
the pure light of reason teaches about God and my actions.”
The outcome here is threefold: #1) Germany witnesses the demise
of any hermeneutica sacra.”' There is indeed no more independent realm
for it. #2) Truths of reason are placed above factual truths. In his study
of monads Leibniz states, “The truths of reason are necessary and their
opposite impossible, factual truths are contingent and their opposite
possible,” Instead of truths of reason and factual truths one can also
speak of “eternal truths” and “temporal, contingent truths.””’ As a result
the contingence of biblical revelation receives a telling blow. The
Neologists then emptied the idea of revelation of its historical content
to a great degree. #3) Man becomes the measure of all things by virtue
of his reason. He is basically good. The doctrine of original sin is
rejected. It is no accident that “in the age of the Neologists the most
hated man” was Augustine.”
Clearly this line of thinking in its historical development does not
permit revelation to serve as the starting point. It must rather constantly
return to man. This theological tendency is strengthened by similar ten-
dencies that had long since established themselves among historians and
philosophers. Already in 1566 the historian Jean Bodin declares him-
self independent from the Bible’s account of history. He decides to serve
“the progress of mankind.”* Three hundred years later the historian
Droysen refers to Descartes and speaks of “cogito ergo sum” as “the
most certain fact we possess.””” We remember the stress that the philoso-
pher Spranger placed on the human consciousness of truth.”* We also
recall that historians and philosophers repeatedly insisted that we can
32 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

only understand the artifacts of the past from person to person, by

means of an interpersonal congeniality with the earlier authors. To cite
Droysen one more time: “We are illumined only by the trace that man
has left behind, by that which the human spirit and hand has formed,
impressed, and touched.”
It is also clear that a theological hermeneutic rooted in this tradi-
tion, and supported by the conviction that the Bible is a book like any
other, had to seek its starting point in man. It did this in a twofold man-
ner. First, it made its point of departure contemporary man in his quest
for understanding. Second, it assumed that it was man with which the
Bible offered an encounter. Modern “existential” interpretation
expresses this most sharply. Bultmann’s primary concern was the “ques-
tion concerning the understanding of human existence that comes to
expression in the Scripture-”*° His student Fuchs formulated it even more
radically: “the question about God... means . . . indeed that we are ask-
ing about human existence itself’? For Fuchs there is no other theologi-
cal and scientific interpretation apart from the “existential.”*' Of course,
Bultmann and his followers were prepared “to let themselves be ques-
tioned by the text” and “to hear its claims.” But this was thoroughly
confined to the level of human understanding of being. It is interesting
that Bultmann, referring explicitly to Dilthey, Schleiermacher, and
Herder, emphasizes the “relatedness” between the biblical author and
the modern interpreter.** At the same time he sees himself bound by the
“law of veracity, which commands that nothing be seen as true which
contradicts the truths that are the factual presupposition of my . . . world-
view.**That is very much in line with the thought of Isaac de la Peyréres
and the Neologists. Gadamer, a cofounder of the “New Hermeneutic;”*
basically holds the same position, even though he seeks links with Hegel
rather than Schleiermacher.** “To understand means first of all to under-
stand each other,’ according to Gadamer. “Understanding is first of all
consent.”” “Consent” thus becomes a key idea‘of a hermeneutic that
seeks its starting point in man. “Consent,” “to understand in relation to
others,” can only take place where in principle equal entities engage in
 THE STARTING POINT OF HERMENEUTICS @ 33

exchange and relationship with each other. The consequence is a rela-

tivizing of truths. Carson, who rejects the idea of “consent,” speaks of a
“sea of historical relativity:”*
Ricoeur has lodged a protest against both Cartesianism and exis-
tentialisni.°° There is no autonomy of human consciousness. For every
consciousness is determined by some given. The given, the event,
becomes our “destiny:’ Immanence is thereby ruptured. For an event that
is determinative cannot be purely immanent. Human consciousness,
then, must be seen as an entity determined and derived from outside
itself.” Yet this dependency is not heteronomy, because it does not con-
sist in force and subjection but rather in an openness of the self as events
make their “nonviolent appeal,’ as Ricoeur puts it.*! But for Ricoeur “the
most formidable obstacle to the idea of revelation” is making con-
sciousness the starting point.*? He opts rather for revelation. His goal is
a “hermeneutic of revelation?’

REVELATION AS STARTING POINT

We have cited Ricoeur in order to indicate how unsatisfactory it is to take

the human person as the starting point of hermeneutics. Such a starting
point contradicts the intent expressed in biblical revelation. Indeed, it
contradicts the idea of revelation itself.
Is there some other approach? If we look back over church history,
we observe that Reformation thinkers embraced a quite different start-
ing point from the ones that became dominant in the seventeenth, eigh-
teenth, or nineteenth centuries. The statement “Holy Scripture is its own
interpreter’’** would be senseless if it were not assumed that Scripture
possessed priority over the human interpreter. Revelation forms the
interpreter’s consciousness, thinking, and willing: he does not under-
stand revelation on the basis of his consciousness, thinking, and will-
ing. Revelation makes itself understandable to the interpreter. Luther’s
basic position was pondered from all sides in a voluminous study by
Flacius, who is rightly regarded as the father of Protestant hermeneu-
34 e BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

tics.‘ Flacius is an enemy of the thesis “that the [divine] word is to be

measured by the object, rather than the object by the [divine] word.”
This concern was for the most part furthered in Protestant
Scholasticism. E.g., for Quenstedt the “certa et infallibilis scripturae
interpretatio” (“sure and infallible interpretation of Scripture”) comes
only from Scripture.” In the same manner scientific Pietism holds that
truth can be recognized only from Scripture itself.** This revelatory start-
ing point is still clearly visible in the middle of the nineteenth century
in Philippi’s Kirchlicher Glaubenslehre. Interacting with
Schleiermacher, Philippi emphasizes that at issue is not the Christian
mental condition and the like but rather the unfolding of the content of
revelation.”
If we have rightly defined our task, namely, to understand the Bible
in accordance with its own basic claim, and if we have rightly observed
that the Bible is the most unique “object;’ then our guiding principle
must be to proceed consistently from the revelation that encounters us
in the form of the Bible. The starting point must strictly and consistently
be revelation itself. Let us attempt to clarify this point.
The Bible brings new dimensions to our experience. The person
God calls is one “whose eye sees clearly,’ who “hears the words of God,”
“who sees a vision from the Almighty” (Nu 24:3f., 15 NIV). He cleanses
persons who hear his message and bear it among other hearers (Isa
6: 1ff.). He places his words in their mouths so they may speak his words
in his name (Jer 1:9). He speaks “face to face” with chosen individuals
(Nu 12:8). He gives “revelation,” disclosure, apocalypse in seeing and
hearing (Rev 1:1). He explains what is hidden (Da 2:22, 24). He proves
he is God—and he alone!—by describing what will take place before it
comes to pass (Isa 44:7; cf. 41:22ff.; 43:9).
Even the person to whom this all appears impossible must lay
aside all standards of prior experience in order to hear. The worst thing
that can befall the hearer is this: to restrict, for reasons of principle, the
right of that which encounters him as revelation to speak. When this
 THE STARTING POINT OF HERMENEUTICS @ 35

occurs, he will invariably fail to hear. In place of encounter there will

surely be opposition.
None of the three standards established by Troeltsch as his “his-
torical method” meets this fundamental demand of hearing. These stan-
dards aré analogy, (immanent) causality, and correlation.®° Their
deficiency cannot be overcome by adding an additional “principle.”s' To
the credit of historians it should be noted that they have never wielded
the “principle of analogy” with such strictness.
It can be said that the demand of revelation has a correlate in the
personal openness on the human side. This opening of oneself is a
process involving the whole of one’s being. It includes thinking and will-
ing and is thus the opposite of ecstasy and meditative self-contempla-
tion. The Formula of Concord (1577) expressed this in very simple
language by stating that people should not stop up their ears.* It is note-
worthy that this statement is embedded right in an overwhelmingly pre-
destinarian context. In man’s personal openness God lays claim to his
created capacity to think. It was that very listening faculty of reason, that
capacity for intellectual perception to be put to its proper use, which old
Protestant orthodoxy regarded as given and essential despite the human
condition due to the Fall.* In opening oneself all prior experience and
knowledge remain present. To that extent a discerning and in that sense
“critical” (better: diacritical, or discriminating) hearing is thoroughly
possible. This personal openness ultimately means the willingness to
turn loose of former certainties on the very broadest scale.
Personal openness and a revelatory starting point would be seri-
ously impaired if we felt that our ability to hear depended on some phi-
losophy or other. In retrospect, every confidence that theology placed in
philosophy proved unfounded. Eighteenth-century English and German
theology languished in the chains of English Deism to a large degree.
Strauss sought the key first in Hegel’s philosophy before going over to
Feuerbach in 1839. Baur attached himself first to Schleiermacher, then
to Hegel, and confessed: “Without philosophy history remains eternally
dead and silent to me.”%* Lohmeyer was dependent on H6nigswald,
36 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

Schlatter on Baader.” Bultmann entrusted himself to Heidegger,*

although the Tiibingen philosopher Walter Schulz later called
Heidegger’s Being and Time “a ‘godless’ book.”
All these and other considerations do not exactly encourage us to
cling to philosophical preunderstandings or to take them as our guide-
posts in listening to revelation.” As already stated, conscious and uncon-
scious philosophical influences will always accompany our hearing. But
they are present in order to be divested of their leading role.
Starting with revelation prevents us, furthermore, from thinking in
terms of an already established doctrine of evolution. Long before
Troeltsch, e.g., Harnack assumed “the evolutionary development” of
biblical revelation. For him the Old Testament was permeated with “all
stages’ of religion, “from naive barbaric folk ritual to the religion of the
Psalmists.’*' Wellhausen went on to develop and present these “stages
of religion’? exegetically. But Dilthey as well, probably dependent on
Hegel, spoke of the “development of religion.” Religion has “its law in
the essence of the [human] spirit, determined as it is by history:’® Here
revelation is pressed into the schema of an immanent causality.
Philosophically based evolutionary viewpoints restrict the interpreter’s
hearing and determine in advance the contents of revelation. In extreme
cases Christianity then appears as “a syncretistic religion; in which the
concept of revelation is either entirely dissolved or transmuted into the
mystical.®
Starting with revelation is, however, also to be insisted on in con-
trast to every form of experiential theology. It is precisely conservative
theologians that have often readily pointed to inner certainty and the
like. Martin Kahler is an especially impressive example. He grounds the
Bible’s authority using the “experience” of the Christian that the “words
of Scripture retain the capacity to generate and preserve the church, as
well as furnish the standard for judgment, purification, and renewal.”*
Here a distinction must be made. Without question experience can pro-
vide an argument in the area of hermeneutics. This argument will, how-
ever, always suffer from a twofold weakness. First, the experiences of
 THE STARTING POINT OF HERMENEUTICS @ 37

various persons diverge from one another. Second, experience as such

offers no possibility to distinguish true and false doctrine from each
other. Most important, however, Scripture opens entirely new human
experiences to us. In interpreting Scripture, therefore, the leading prin-
ciple must be defermined by a theology based on revelation rather than
a theology based on experience.
If the revelatory starting point be taken seriously, then interpreting
and understanding Scripture can basically only take place inductively.
That is, knowledge and standards are gleaned from continually fresh lis-
tening to Scripture. It is perhaps here that the deepest difference lies
between a Pietist and a fundamentalist hermeneutic. Representing the
latter view, J. I. Packer can say, e.g., “No Christian will question that God
speaks truth and truth only”—‘then Scripture as such must be infalli-
ble and inerrant, because it is God’s utterance’””’ That is a rationalistic
and deductive conception. Because #1) in the Bible God speaks, and #2)
God cannot speak what is not true (“untruths cannot be God’s word’),
then all that the Bible says is true and reliable. C. F Henry follows a sim-
ilar line in his monumental work. For him it is “logically deducible”’ that
the Bible is without error precisely because it presents the inspired word
of God. Here he is able to refer to John Wesley.” One should not, how-
ever, simply label this outlook as “fundamentalistic’’” We observe a sim-
ilar approach among orthodox Lutherans, e.g., Philippi, who writes: “Tt
can be derived a priori [!] from the concept of divine revelation itself that
divine revelation must have preserved itself with perfect integrity.” In
addition, theologians who may be fairly designated fundamentalists also
wish to stress the need for inductive work.” Three reasons speak against
a deductive approach. First is the danger of rationalism which readily
appears. It suffices to recall Descartes’ proof of God’s existence.
Descartes assumed “that God as absolutely perfect being cannot desire
to deceive,’ and that “‘to the being of God as perfection . . . necessarily”
belongs “‘existence.”” Such concepts are not all too far removed from
statements made by scholarly fundamentalism. Second is the danger of
placing dogmatic principles over biblical exegesis.” Third is the knowl-
38 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

edge that man can know nothing certain in matters of faith unless rev-
elation discloses it to him.
We thus remain dependent on an inductive procedure that lets itself
be led step by step in listening to revelation, gaining all its knowledge
from the Scripture.
If in interpreting Scripture we decline to entrust ourselves either
to philosophy or to traditional dogmatics, then we must repudiate even
more firmly every claim that other sciences domineeringly assert against
theology. That applies first of all to the science of history. Liicke has
already stressed that one must “keep . . . theology safe from the thor-
oughgoing sole sovereignty of historical knowledge.” It is true that the-
ology, as talk about God and with God and as task of the church, has
numerous points of contact with historical science. Yet at the same time
it possesses a healthy independence. This applies no less to natural sci-
ence. Fascher observes that the humanities and especially theology up
to the First World War stood “under the covert dictates of natural sci-
ence’s ways of thinking and formulating concepts.”” To read Bultmann’s
essay “The New Testament and Mythology” is to see that these dictates
exerted a measure of influence into the time of World War II and
beyond. It was precisely natural scientists who helped free theology
from these dictates.” Questions concerning ethics and religion are more-
over now much in the forefront in the natural sciences. So it hardly befits
theology to give in to the “spell” of these or those scientific hypothe-
ses.”
We state once more: biblical hermeneutics starts with the enscrip-
turated revelation and subordinates all other demands to this listening
to the Scripture.
But is such a hermeneutic, rooted in revelational-theological con-
siderations, rightly deemed a “‘science’”’?
 CHAPTER FOUR

Theological
Hermeneutics
as Science

THE INDEPENDENCE OF THEOLOGICAL SCIENCE

It is disputed whether theology, and along with it hermeneutics, can
comprise a “science.” L. Wittgenstein and the Vienna circle deny it. For
them, only statements of (human) logic and mathematics and the empir-
ical sciences have meaning.' Theological statements thus become
“sense-less” in the strictest sense.
Such a viewpoint is untenable. It would in fact mean that broad
reaches of human existence, e.g., in philosophy and religion, would
become “sense-less” and remain removed from ordered mental reflec-
tion. It would end in irreparable damage to our comprehension of real-
ity. In addition, it contradicts the history of the West, in which theology
was “the mother of all sciences” (Erasmus),? not an intruder having no
rights.
Granted: if one insists that in modern science “the critical, think-
40 e BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

ing person” is “the measure of all things,” then theology appears as a

stranger in the circle of other sciences. For it maintains that it finds the
measure of all things in God. In its very essence, then, theology is non-
rationalistic and nonpositivistic. Yet this observation by no means
removes its right to call itself a science. It can point out that to this pres-
ent hour no unanimously recognized concept of science has been found.°
In this situation we must content ourselves with a formal concept of sci-
ence. “Science” may be defined as follows: methodologically ordered
reflection, making use of all available means, which can be executed and
tested under the same conditions by others.
In this sense theology along with its hermeneutic bear the charac-
ter of a science. Yet, because it deals with God and his revelation, it
remains a science sui generis. This finding corresponds to what we have
already shown above in chapter 2 regarding a special hermeneutic. And
precisely because it involves a science sui generis and suae rationis, no
one can demand of theology that it “emulate” every “major variation in
all the sciences.”* That would be to give up its own distinctive legitimacy
and ultimately its scientific character as well.
Incidentally, in the early twentieth century, liberal theology fought
for that distinctive legitimacy in exemplary fashion. At that time a bat-
tle was underway regarding whether theology faculties in the universi-
ties “had a right to exist . . . only as a faculty of general religious
studies.” Scholars like G. Kriiger or H. Weinel viewed the presence of
an independent “New Testament” science, or any analogous theologi-
cal discipline, as a “chief hindrance” in the way of “the research of early
Christianity” and of “healthy theological-scientific teaching activity:’®
They demanded that traditional theology be subsumed under a com-
prehensive history-of-religions approach. In response, A. Harnack in his
university presidential address of August 1903 referred to the unique-
ness of Christianity: it is “the religion, because Jesus Christ” is “the
master.” Perhaps the Prussian king whom Harnack called “our king and
lord’ contributed to the preservation of independent theology facul-
ties—an objectively justified decision.
 THEOLOGICAL HERMENEUTICS AS SCIENCE @ 41

RELATIONSHIP TO OTHER SCIENCES

Let us now attempt to bring a bit more clarity to the relation between
theology and the other sciences.
1. Theology also works with methodological rigor. That is, it takes
pains to demonstrate how it arrives at its results and how they may be
thoroughly tested. It employs expert knowledge, makes use of appro-
priate resources, and attempts to spot subjectivity so as to overcome its
harmful effects."!
2. Like other sciences it serves the interests of truth. Yet as soon
as one asks what “truth” is, disputes rage within theology as well as
between theology and other sciences. For Spranger, e.g., all science
takes its cue from the (Platonic) “idea of truth” and must be measured
by that standard.'? The Catholic J. Blank sees himself obligated “‘to the
ethos of scientific truth?’ which he interprets as renunciation of dog-
matic authority regarding truth.'’ The Protestant Bultmann adheres to
the (Enlightenment-based) “principle of truthfulness, which requires us
to accept nothing as true which contradicts truths that form the factual
presupposition of my understanding of the world.’'* For others Christ
embodies the truth. Nevertheless, despite all differences one can cau-
tiously state that most sciences and scientists feei they are obligated to
a truth that stands in contrast to deception and error.
3. In addition, it is essential to recognize that theology is ready to
revise its methods and ways of posing questions.'* Such self-criticism
links it with the rest of the sciences.'* It is disputed, however, to what
extent such self-criticism is justified. Should it extend to “self-criticism
of its foundations”? The philosopher Spranger affirms this.” The
Catholic Blank comes to a similar result when he says, “Whoever comes
to the Bible with firm, unshakable convictions and is not willing radi-
cally to risk and expose to scrutiny the entirety of his inherited theo-
logical understanding in order to listen more precisely, to learn, and to
give something new a hearing—that person may be suited for much, but
he is totally unsuited for exegesis.”'* Since, however, divine revelation is
42 e@ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

the foundation of theology, and since theology can gain its knowledge
of God only from that source, a revision or even rejection of this foun-
dation is not an option. In this restriction we see once more the sui
generis character of theological science.
4. Yet precisely at the point of this nonnegotiable given, the dis-
cussion flares up anew. How can theology, e.g., still be called a science
when it refuses to engage in criticism of the content of revelation? Here
it should first be recalled that nonnegotiable givens also play determi-
native roles in other sciences. A legal scholar is, e.g., bound by existing
laws and precedents. Yet he can arrive at radically new conceptions in
the area of philosophy of law. But even there he will infer the law ulti-
mately from the given, e.g., from morality or history or political goals.
In the same way the historian is bound by actual extant data of history.
Doing away with this givenness would place him in the category of a
storyteller or dreamer. Still more to the point, P. Ricoeur maintains that
life and reflection generally depend on givens (“external testimonies’’).'°
In that sense theology is scientifically legitimate in starting with the
inalterability of its foundation in the form of revelation.
5. But what about preunderstanding? Doesn’t theology require
faith? And doesn’t this entangle it in unscientific ties? The battle over
this question is ancient. Once more, the dispute rages not only between
theologians and proponents of other sciences but also within theology.
On the one hand liberal theologians emphasize that theological research
presupposes a “complete freedom.”® William Wrede laid out this
demand even more clearly in his essay “Uber Aufgabe und Methode der
sogenannten Neutestamentlichen Theologie” (“On the Task and
Method of So-called ‘New Testament Theology’”’) (1897). “A pure, dis-
interested quest for knowledge” should “lead” the theological inter-
preter. He must “be adept at holding himself entirely aloof from” his
own “outlook, be capable of suspending it, so to speak?”?! It is clear that
in this view personal faith is unwelcome. Still in 1958 (a half century
after Wrede), Rylaarsdam demanded a “presuppositionless” exegesis.”
Since then, however, it has been widely recognized that there is no
 THEOLOGICAL HERMENEUTICS AS SCIENCE @ 43

presuppositionless exegesis or biblical research. Harnack furnishes an

instructive example. He spoke of “the pure knowledge of the object” and
insisted on the “freedom” of theological research.” At the same time he
described how “‘a new concept of science has established itself since the
18th century” and “gained ascendency in the universities.”** As
Harnack’s words reveal, this was a conception of science that pushed
into the universities by storm, bringing with it certain substantial impli-
cations. Blank referred to a few of these when he reflected on the recep-
tion of Protestant biblical criticism in Catholic research. Modern
methods have also “ushered modernity’s autonomous historical-critical
reason into theological thought.’ This is not a matter of “taking over a
neutral tool” but rather “‘an entire complex of additional new problems,
behind which lies a comprehensive, novel understanding of truth?’
Even the “sound reason” (sana ratio) of the Socinians was, in fact, deci-
sively informed by their convictions.” In the same manner theology in
the age of Neology and rationalism worked “with philological-histori-
cal means” and presuppositions that dictated results.”
The insight that there is no presuppositionless understanding is
also widely acknowledged outside the confines of theology. “Every
hermeneutic’”—whether in the realm of law, philology, philosophy, psy-
chology, or some other realm—‘will be grounded in certain metaphys-
ical convictions’”* Among philosophers many have spoken of the
presuppositions that are innate to science, including Theodor Litt, Erich
Rothacker, Max Scheler, and Eduard Spranger. “All knowledge is nour-
ished, finally, by a... world-view’? Spranger wrote: “Even in the act of
pure observational understanding there is always a silent measuring
against some ideal:’° H. G. Gadamer went so far as to speak against the
“methodological ideal of the objectivity of science.”*' Even if this bears
the scent of subjectivity, one must agree with Gadamer that every form
of tradition grows out of preunderstanding.”
So then, theology loses nothing by admitting that “as a science” it
is “continually borne along and informed by faith.’? For now it must
remain open as to when faith steps in and what the consequences will
44 e BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

be. For the moment all that matters is that faith be affirmed and recog-
nized as a presupposition and aid in understanding Scripture.** Whoever
wishes to infer the “unscientific character” of theology from this must
submit to Oepke’s question: “since when is color blindness necessary
for the history of painting, or tone deafness for the science of music?’
6. Still, faith belongs to the level of immanence. Doesn’t the idea
of science leave off where talk of God begins? Everything changes at
the point where “the question of God is included in the scope of the dis-
cussion.”** From this many theologians have drawn the conclusion that
they must use “‘atheistic methods,” so to speak.” Against this speak three
considerations: #1) No one would deny philosophy its status as a science
because it speaks of God. Thus Hegel sought a “reconciliation of faith
and knowledge.” Even more striking, he wanted “now once more to
place God absolutely at the forefront, on the pinnacle of philosophy as
the sole ground of everything, as the only principium essendi and
cognoscendi [principle of existence and of knowing].”* #2) The histo-
rian is also permitted to consider God without ceasing to pursue the sci-
ence of history. Thus Droysen acknowledges in persons a “most
personal realm” “in which they commune with themselves and God
99 66s

alone.” True, he adds: “Into this holy sanctuary the eye of research
gains no entrance.” It suffices, however, that a place must be reserved
for this sanctuary if one seriously pursues the historian’s craft. #3) It is
still the case that “theology . . . [is] the mother of all the sciences.”*!
Talk of God does not, therefore, cause theology to forfeit its right
to describe itself as “science.”

RESULT

To restate: the idea of science must be formally determined. Assuming

this, theology along with its hermeneutic is a science. It is, nevertheless,
a science sui generis, distinguished from all others by its dependence on
revelation and its relation to faith.
 " a
CHAPTER FIVE

The Interpreter

|Beton the independence of theology sharpens the question of the

interpreter. Who can understand the Bible in accordance with its
own claim? Which presuppositions are appropriate?

INTERPRETATION WITHOUT PRESUPPOSITIONS?

In the history of interpretation it has not always been self-evident that
understanding presupposes a positive relationship to that which, or the
one who, is to be understood. Thus Jean Alphonse Turretin (1671-1737)
in his methodological treatise “De Sacrae Scripturae methodo tractatus
bipartitus” assumed this standpoint: “An empty head . . ., a veritable
tabula rasa . . . must be brought to the Scripture’’' He thereby con-
sciously set himself apart from the Pietist hermeneutic of the day and
inaugurated a long chain of demands aimed at securing exegesis that was
presuppositionless.” Recently J. Barr has been at the forefront in cham-
pioning the thesis that critical distance aids a better, more objective
apprehension.’ The interpreter’s faith or lack of faith, therefore, makes
no difference: “the presence or absence of personal religious commit-
ment cannot function as a test of the validity of methods or results.”
Meanwhile, however, the acceptance of presuppositionlessness has
proved to be “‘self-deception” (see previous chapter).° It remains only to
46 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

inquire “which presuppositions are justified.”* The question is, “which

assumptions are legitimate?”
As Dilthey put it, the “degrees” of understanding are “conditioned
by interest.” “If interest is restricted, so is understanding.” Spranger
argues in similar fashion: “All understanding in the area of the human-
ities is tied to the intellectual breadth (capacity) and maturity (fullness
of spirit) of the researcher’s personality: From this can be inferred the
hermeneutical axiom that understanding increases and deepens to the
extent that the seeker engages with openness what he wishes to
understand. ;

CONGENIALITY?
It is therefore only consistent if “capacity for religious empathy’’” or a
“religious sensitivity’'' 291]
was demanded in theology. The term conge-
niality is often used, however, to express the requisite nearness.'”
In specific cases, this congeniality was conceived in quite various
fashions. It was thought of in terms of the capacity of creative, imitative
imagination," imitative sensitivity,'* “intuition” as “soul [merges into]
soul,’ a similar form of “experience of spirit 5) inner relatedness of
9916 66

choice,”” inner “agreement” with the biblical authors,'* or simply “affin-

ity” and “sympathy” with them." This congeniality could, however, also
be separated from the authors and regarded as a positive “relationship
of the interpreter’s life to the matter being communicated” as expressed
in the words of the text.” In any case there had to be a similar quantity
present on both sides: “Just as an abstemious person would hardly be an
apt interpreter for the songs of an Anakreon or Sappho,’ a nonreligious
person would be ill-suited to interpret the Bible.' Still, those who were
united in calling for congeniality were also clear that an unbridgeable
gap still remains. This gap involves the uniqueness of the individual.
Both Dilthey and Torm state, “Individuum est ineffabile’’?? All under-
standing “remains only relative.’
The principle of congeniality’s necessity is largely correct and wor-
 THE INTERPRETER ® 47

thy of recognition. It is to be affirmed so long as it is not based on the

genius or “brilliance of the interpreter’ It should rather be based on the
same (Holy) Spirit who created the Scripture and takes hold of the inter-
preter. Yet precisely out of regard for the Holy Spirit, it would be more
appropriate to speak of a “co-spirituality” than a “con-geniality.”
First, however, it must be asked whether such a “kinship of spirit”
between the interpreter and written revelation is sufficient. It is all too
easy to equate spiritus (spirit) with intellect and “kinship of spirit” with
intellectual capacity.** An additional element, then, must enter the pic-
ture to enable adequate understanding. J. G. Hamann perceptively rec-
ognized this; he stated, “interpreters have had plenty of arguments but
absolutely no, or very little, affectus (emotion) and mores (moral
sense). Amazingly, nontheologians have, with special emphasis,
demanded love. “Certainly one person understands the other, but only
peripherally. It is quite another thing when a friend trusts a friend, so that
in love one person captures the image of another’s true self?” This state-
ment by Droysen is underscored by Treitschke: we understand only that
which we love. “This applies to the highest degree in understanding reli-
gious tradition’”* If revelation (as we will show more clearly below) has
to do most of all with an I-Thou relationship, then faith and love are all
the more necessary to initiate an adequate understanding of the Bible.

HOLY SPIRIT AND SPIRITUAL REBIRTH?

Before we follow this trail any farther, we need to ponder the word spirit
in the heading above. In the previous section we stated that it is the Holy
Spirit who binds together God’s revelation and the interpreter. Is, then,
the reception of this Spirit the necessary presupposition for under-
standing revelation and interpreting it for others? Is Philippi’s inference
correct: “only the person who has the Holy Spirit has spiritual related-
ness to the content of the Bible’”?” Philippi went on to speak, consis-
tently enough, of the “folly of presuppositionlessness” committed by
those who want to understand and interpret without the Holy Spirit.*°
48 e BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

With this we touch on the hotly debated “theology of the spiritu-

ally reborn” (theologia regenitorum). Some insist on it doggedly, while
others repudiate it as unworkable and obsolete.*' In the scope of church
history an imposing range of voices call for it. Paul definitely viewed a
true understanding of the Holy Scriptures as possible only through the
Holy Spirit (cf. 1Co 2:13f.; 2Co 3:14ff.; 4:3ff.).°? Origen shared this view
that only persons renewed by the Spirit, “qui dignos se et capaces ad
recipiendam capientiam praepararent” (“who thereby render themselves
worthy and receptive for the appropriation of Scripture”’),** grasp the full
content of the Bible. Both Luther and Calvin** emphasized that every
interpreter is dependent on the Holy Spirit. Quite typical of Luther is the
passage quoted by Karl Holl from Luther’s lectures on the Psalms: “nam
nullus alium in scripturis spiritualibus intelligit, nisi eundem spiritum
sapiat et habeat” (“for none understands the spiritual Scriptures unless
he tastes and possesses the same Spirit’”’).** The Protestant Scholastics
likewise advocated a theologia regenitorum. Here they were at pains to
make a distinction. Hollaz taught that a grammatical-lexical under-
standing is thoroughly possible for the person who is not spiritually
reborn.** But full understanding presupposes divine illumination. The
Institutiones Theologiae dogmaticae (1723) by Joh. Franz Buddeus is
indebted to both Protestant Scholasticism and Pietism. It lays special
stress on the theologia regenitorum. Only spiritual regeneration, with
the faith and practical obedience it brings, equips one for theology.” Not
until the incursion of the Enlightenment does Mosheim (d. 1755) give
up the theologia regenitorum. Mosheim explains that it affects only the
communication and persuasive force of knowledge, not knowledge
itself.** In pietistic hermeneutics, then, it was most of all the interpreter
who was at the center of deliberations. From Francke to Bengel there is
agreement regarding the principle “that reason must subordinate itself
to faith’’® There is also agreement in the goal of “becoming more spir-
itual through the reading of Scripture?’ Francke, referring to the aca-
demic instruction he gave, states, “No theology lecture is held that does
not aim for the heart and that does not attempt to pierce the soul of every
 THE INTERPRETER @ 49

listener:”*' Prayer is as important as thoroughness in theological study.”

For biblical exposition, consequently, the individuality of the author is
important. Thereby the psychological element pushes into hermeneu-
tics. This is readily visible in Francke’s Praelectiones hermeneuticae
(1717). Finally; the major work on hermeneutics in Pietism was the
Institutiones hermeneuticae sacrae (1724) by Johann Jakob Rambach
(1693-1735). He elevated illumination by the Holy Spirit, love for
Jesus, and love for God’s Word to decisive presuppositions of scriptural
exegesis.**
The Enlightenment in no way signaled the end of theologia regen-
itorum. It is interesting that Schleiermacher’s student Friedrich Liicke
consciously began with J. Franz Buddeus and Johann Jakob Rambach.**
For Liicke the Holy Spirit was indispensable to the interpreter. We need
“the pious and persistent prayer to the Angel Interpreter,’ and we need
“faith in league with science’”* In some sections Liicke reads like an
introit to the later “pneumatic exegesis” (see below). Liicke laments that
interpreters have become “even mockers of that which is sacred?” We
must have “apostolic love and evangelical faith’* to arrive at an under-
standing of the Holy Scripture. J. Samuel Lutz and Friedrich Adolf
Philippi cling to theologia regenitorum in the mid-nineteenth century.”
Martin Kahler then passed on to his students, among them H. E. Weber,
the sure conviction that “the theological enterprise calls for the believ-
ing apprehension of revelation,’*° Or in Weber’s formulation, faith forms
the “key of understanding’’’' R. Seeberg and—in recent times—F.
Beisser are examples of advocates of a theologia regenitorum in the
twentieth century.” It is virtually self-evident that such a theologia is
promoted by scientific fundamentalism to this present day.* It also holds
an important place among representatives of the so-called pneumatic
exegesis such as Karl Girgensohn, Otto Procksch, or Hellmuth Frey,
whose thought relies on Johann Tobias Beck.** The papal Bible com-
mission renewed the normative status of theologia regenitorum in its
“Instructio de historica Evangeliorum veritate” of April 21, 1964.°°
In view of all these precedents from church history it is impossi-
50 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

ble to declare a theologia regenitorum to be unworkable or outmoded.*°

There should rather be substantive discussion at this point regarding its
justification.

THE ANSWER OF REVELATION

It would be thinkable—and perhaps not entirely false—to make man the
starting point at least in view of a theologia regenitorum. But here, too,
we must think rigorously from the basis of revelation. What presuppo-
sitions are laid down by revelation itself to enable us to arrive at under-
standing? The answer is found along two lines:
1. A knowledge of Scripture and serious study of it are also possi-
ble without the Holy Spirit. That is evident from Jesus’ discussions with
the Bible scholars, the scribes, of his time (cf. Mt 23:2f.; Jn 5:39) as well
as from Jewish religious instruction (cf. 2Ti 3:14f.) and many other
sources (e.g., Ac 17:11).
2. A sufficient understanding is, however, possible only for the per-
son who has become Jesus’ disciple (cf. Mt 13:11ff., 52) and is led by
the Holy Spirit (cf. Jn 6:45; 16:13; 1Co 2:13f.; 2Co 3:14ff.). From the
point of view of the New Testament, knowledge is an outcome of faith
(Jn 6:69; Ac 2:38).
Both #1) and #2) above are affirmed at the time of the
Reformation. Luther emphasized “the general understandability of the
Bible’”’” and ascribed some cognitive competence to “the natural light
of reason.”** Calvin held “that some knowledge of God resides indelibly
in the human heart’? and “that in spite of everything sensitivity for the
divine cannot be extinguished.”® He also held, however, that without the
Holy Spirit and faith we have nothing more than “only a very approxi-
mate impression of the divine essence”; there is “nowhere a pure and
reliable religion . . . where the only basis is natural reason’’®!
Melanchthon seems to have in mind a sequence of stages when he writes
that every good theologian must be “primum grammaticus, deinde
dialectus, denique testis” (“first grammarian, then dialectician, finally
 THE INTERPRETER @ SI

witness’’).© We recall, moreover, the view of Hollaz, who conceded that

even the unregenerate have grammatical-lexical knowledge, but then
continued: the “‘summus et infallibilis interpres” (“highest and infalli-
ble interpreter’’) is the Holy Spirit.
We’repeat: revelation itself presupposes the Holy Spirit and faith
for a sufficient and appropriate understanding on the part of the inter-
preter. To that extent there can be no doubt that a biblical hermeneutic
includes a theologia regenitorum.
Yet that does not mean that every reading and every understand-
ing is dependent on faith. Revelation rather also offers itself to the read-
ing and understanding of that person who does not yet have faith. We
may refer here to the attractive principle laid down by Hollaz that man
is converted and renewed in the act of reading.” It is thus impermissi-
ble to demand spiritual rebirth for all Bible study. It rather remains up
to the sovereign work of God’s Spirit when and how he will lead the per-
son he addresses to renewal and rebirth. A consequence of #1) and #2)
earlier in this section is that according to Scripture there may be cir-
cumstances and certain areas in which the unregenerate make discover-
ies that elude the regenerate. E.g., a linguistically gifted Moslem can
shed light on linguistically difficult Old Testament passages. A further
consequence is, e.g., that a person in prison can find his way to faith
through Bible reading. On the other hand, believing and Spirit-led inter-
preters are not impervious to error, as both revelation (Ac 11:2ff.;
15:1ff.) and church history prove.

FAITH AS AID TO UNDERSTANDING

This much, however, can be said: according to all the above, the faith of
the interpreter is a welcome, helpful, and indeed ultimately indispens-
able presupposition of understanding.
1. It would be thoroughly unnatural, as Lutz observed, “to deny the
Christian faith in the process of interpreting the Bible.”®
2. We are not in a position to divest ourselves of our encounter with
52 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

Christ and our prior Christian background in order to hand them over,
so to speak, to critical research for safekeeping. Such a move would also
be entirely unscientific. To be scientific rather means to examine crit-
ically one’s own prejudgments and predecisions and to render them
fruitful.
3. It would also not be desirable to detach faith and love for God’s
Word from the person doing biblical research. Faith does not, after all,
stand in opposition to an objective, i.e., appropriate, understanding. R.
Bring has shown this to be an insight of Martin Luther.’ Even for
philosophers, “one’s own certainty and desire for open-eyed objectivity
need not exclude each other’’** How much less ought we to separate faith
and interpretation from each other when revelation itself binds them
together!
We must now call attention to the consequences of separating
believing encounter with revelation, on the one hand, from understand-
ing it in the course of research, on the other. One of two things takes
place. One either avoids the risk of pursuing both lines as far as they
extend, or one ends up forcibly dislocating the wholeness of one’s own
personality. E. Barnikol relates the confession of the Tiibingen Old
Testament scholar G. F. Oehler (1847): “With my heart a foe of destruc-
tive criticism, with my mind ensnared by it, I swim here between two
waters, charging myself with unbelief on the one hand and lack of
integrity on the other’ In 1882, J. Wellhausen quit the theology fac-
ulty in Greifswald and instead took up a post as professor of Semitic lan-
guages in Halle—all because he could not unite the two sides. He
argued, “I became a theologian because scientific investigation of the
Bible interested me. Only gradually did it dawn on me that a professor
of theology has the practical task of preparing students for service in the
Lutheran church, and that I did not fulfill this practical task. Rather,
despite all my discretion, I made my listeners unfit for their office?”
Dibelius accepted a dualism between faith and thought but conceded,
“The dualism between the two modes of approach, that of believing and
that of knowing, can lead to the point of forcible dislocation within the
 THE INTERPRETER @ 53

whole of one’s personal life.””' Presumably many thought, and still

think, like E. von Dobschiitz, who held that “only science and not edi-
fication” belong “in the academy:’” Even among the proponents of
“pneumatic exegesis,’ who sought a synthesis between “the critical
sharpness of contemporary science” and the “strength and depth of bib-
licists;’” the end result was a “form of double-talk’’*
Such dislocation between thinking and believing, the researching
and the practicing self, is hermeneutically the most infelicitous position
thinkable. Already at the anthropological level it impairs congeniality.
It makes contradiction a normal form of living, which is then con-
sciously or unconsciously imposed on the object. And this all takes
place in opposition to the devotion that revelation demands.
In contrast, the renewed person endowed with the Spirit of revela-
tion itself, who opens himself in commitment of his entire person to this
revelation, who enters this encounter in trust and love—this person turns
out to be better suited as an interpreter.

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE REGENERATE AND

THE UNREGENERATE INTERPRETER

The question often arises, What distinguishes the regenerate from the
unregenerate interpreter? Calvin placed high value on the certainty that
the Holy Spirit gives to the interpreter. He considers it “established that
only persons inwardly taught by the Holy Spirit take their stand clearly
and securely on the Bible’’* Calvin seeks the difference, then, not pri-
marily in the results but rather in the interpreter himself. Buddeus
moves in a similar direction. The unregenerate lack two things: #1)
agreement with that which transcends human reason, and #2) the vital-
ity of the word of Scripture.” Yet how foolish it would be to want to lead
others to salvation and at the same time forget one’s own soul. In addi-
tion, Buddeus continues, the theologian must be familiar with the ora-
tio-meditatio-tentatio (prayer-reflection-struggle) sequence.” The
unregenerate person is thus capable of relaying tradition to others only
54 e BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

in an insufficient fashion. And he is further disadvantaged with respect

to content, because he finds acceptance of the supernatural difficult.
Like other advocates of a theologia regenitorum, J.C. K. von Hofmann
also distinguishes between an outward knowledge, which he called the
“‘orammatical-historical;’ from an inward.” The inward is available only
to the regenerate.
To be more specific and explicit, however, involves obvious prob-
lems. In this connection Hofmann says no more than that only the regen-
erate can equip the church for the right use of the Holy Scripture.”
Without the Holy Spirit, says M. Kahler, “the full effectiveness of God’s
word” would be lacking. It could “therefore not be known and acknowl-
edged as God’s word at all’’*° The aspect of the Bible, therefore, that
makes it God’s Word falls out of consideration. When Kahler speaks of
“acknowledgement” through the interpreter, this most surely involves
the personal relationship of the exegete to revelation. Girgensohn too
places strong emphasis on this personal relationship. The “application
of the word of Scripture to oneself” is essential.*' Then one arrives at
“the actual core’? of the Holy Scripture, a core which the purely “‘sci-
entific” theology therefore does not reach. Yet, what is “the actual
core”? In recent times Torm has ventured an answer to the question,
What can a believing exegete do any better? He cites three advantages:
#1) “tenacious energy” for research, #2) the capability for “directing”
the right “questions to the text,’ and #3) better knowledge of the “‘fine
nuances.”*’ Of these at least #1) and #3) belong to the so-called outward
knowledge of the Scripture. Nothing extra is visible here in terms of
content.
If these and other* attempts are soberly assessed, it must be said
that it so far “has been impossible” to formulate in a really precise way
“the difference between illuminated understanding of Scripture and
unilluminated exegesis.’”*
It follows that we must replace the anthropocentric question with
the pneumatic. The question is thus no longer: how does this or that
interpreter differ from others seen from the human perspective? Nor is
 THE INTERPRETER @ 55

it: in what respect does he achieve better exegesis? The question is now
rather: what does the Holy Spirit, who encounters us in revelation, want
to effect with the interpreter? In what follows we proceed from this
question.
ra 4

THE WORK OF THE SPIRIT ON THE INTERPRETER

The Bible is far more than a treasure trove of doctrinal truths. To view
it as a catalog of God’s utterances would be to mistake its character. It
is primarily a communication of God—communication in the literal
sense: God himself communes with us. He wants us to experience com-
munion with him. To that extent the Bible is termed “revelation” with
good reason. It is, so to speak, an encounter related in the clear form of
words. Or to put it another way: it is transmission of the discussion
between God and man—communicative mediation.
This mediation would be utterly misunderstood were it seen as
revelation “only insofar as it affects me.” The Bible knows no truth that
is truth only insofar as it presents “truth for me.’ Existential categories,
therefore, have never sufficed to apprehend it.*°
If we consistently recognize this character of communication, of
revelation, then “conversation” becomes the overarching concept that
describes all biblical research. Understanding takes place within that
framework of question and answer, address and decision, sometimes
even contradiction. The I-Thou relationship becomes decisive in what
the Bible says.” In the wake of this encounter the interpreter makes deci-
sions that he previously never made. His world of experience is changed.
This is the point at which Ricoeur’s concept of “understanding oneself
in the presence of the text” actually possesses a certain nearness to rev-
elation.*® What Ricoeur terms “expos[ing] oneself to receive from it [i.e.,
the world of the text] a larger self” indeed takes place.*® One should not,
however, overlook the difference that lies in the fact that revelation does
not merely present an absolutized world of the text; it is also transmis-
sion, the mediation of divine speech.
56 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

In making encounter our starting point,” i.e., the encounter related

in the clear form of words in scriptural revelation, we are at the same
time taking up a concern of Spener and Bengel. Both could describe the
Bible as a letter from God.®' As Spener puts it, it is “the divine letter of
grace, in which the heavenly father announces to us his will to give us
blessedness.” Bengel states similarly, “This is a letter that my God
caused to be written to me, according to which I should orient myself
and according to which my God will guide me. . . . Every person must
handle it as if it had to do only with him or her?’
If we find ourselves in an I-Thou relationship, then it is evident that
our understanding cannot make use only of “categories of objects.” A
purely “‘object’”’-ive study of Scripture would once more misconstrue
revelation.
It has already been intimated that the encounter mediated by the
Bible seeks to elicit decisions. Oepke has rightly underscored this ele-
ment: “the distinctiveness of the biblical text lies in its demand for a
decision from the hearer’? ““Hearer’”—that is, first and foremost the
exegete. There are, then, no “neutral” exegetes.** And there is also no
“neutral” zone of research that lies isolated from the decision process.
As G. N. Stanton remarks, not even so-called textual criticism is possi-
ble without hermeneutical presuppositions.*°
Yet the concept of “decision” is too narrow to encompass what we
are discussing here. What the Holy Spirit seeks to effect in the inter-
preter is far more comprehensive: transformation, renewal. In
2 Corinthians 4:6, Paul compares his new existence, especially his new-
found and burgeoning understanding, with the divine act of creation.
Before Paul could preach and exegete, the old Saul had to become the
new Paul. The Holy Spirit seized him, indwelt him, transformed him,
and illuminated him. According to Scripture, the same should happen
to every interpreter (cf. Jn 3:1ff.; 14:16ff.; 16:13ff.; Ac 13:2; Ro 12:4ff.;
1Co 2:10ff.; 12:28ff.; 1Pe 1:12). An interpreter who sets himself against
this transformation by, e.g., claiming some sort of “neutrality” falls into
existential contradiction of the revelation that he wishes to interpret and
 THE INTERPRETER @ 57

understand. This contradiction is far more dangerous and profound than

can be described by simply pointing to its deficiencies at individual
points where they crop up. It would be a trivialization of the contradic-
tion to ask naively: “What is inaccessible to me when I close myself to
the encounter that revelation seeks to convey?” Not a what becomes
inaccessible but a who: God withdraws himself precisely in that revela-
tion that should disclose him, and the interpreter withdraws himself as
one who is addressed. Yet only as one touched by revelation’s claim on
him can he arrive at understanding.
The Holy Spirit teaches the interpreter to conceive of the under-
standing process as a part of Christian discipleship. The interpreter
transformed by the Spirit asks with the first disciples, ““Lord, where else
can we go? You have the words of eternal life” (Jn 6:68). At work here
is a personal knowing reminiscent of what the Hebrew yada‘ (to know)
conveys: entering a relationship, experiencing through practice, con-
firming through involvement.”
The “starting point” of our exegetical work is, therefore, emphat-
ically not “scientific skepticism.’” For skepticism is rooted, after all, in
Cartesian thinking, for which from the outset all that lies outside the
thinking self is to be doubted. This relates most closely to the notion of
autonomous reason as this made its victorious march during the
Enlightenment.
The starting point is rather obedience, the obedience of the person
whose communion with God is one of fervor (“Be fervent in the Spirit,’
Ro 12:11) through God’s own working. This communion manifests
itself in hearing, compliance, and service. We are thus not speaking of
blind obedience but obedience illuminated by the Spirit. This is cer-
tainly similar to what Ricoeur termed “a nonviolent appeal’”* But
Ricoeur misses an essential feature of revelation when he conceives it
as directed to “our imagination” rather than “our obedience.” This
loses sight of the close proximity of obedience and knowledge. Indeed,
Jesus made knowledge dependent on obedience when he said, “If any-
one wants to do his will, he will know whether this teaching is from God
58 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

or whether I speak from my own initiative” (Jn 7:17). Without the prac-
tice of discipleship, therefore, no Christian hermeneutic can be con-
structed. These connections have often been noted in the literature. As
soon as God’s voice “becomes recognizable,’ says Girgensohn, “every
possibility of human superordination over his word ceases. As soon as
God’s voice sounds, man can do but one thing: hear and obey uncondi-
tionally:’' Elsewhere he defines the “key to the Holy Scripture” as the
“bending of one’s own person to the will of God?’!"' From an entirely
different theological position, Elert stated that God’s revelation subjects
the interpreter along with his prejudgments to divine judgment: “The
Scripture is understood rightly as God’s word only if the exegete is will-
ing to hand himself over to the Lord who speaks here, i.e., willing to
receive God’s verdict regarding him from that which he wants to under-
stand.”'” Accepting this judgment means giving up the value judgments
and prejudices that arise from autonomous reason. For the renewed per-
son such willingness to be corrected is a thoroughgoing possibility. '°
It cannot be denied: in that the Holy Spirit leads the interpreter into
the obedience of knowledgeable and practicing discipleship, he speci-
fies to him at the same time the authority to which he is subject. This
authority is the eternal Lord. And this eternal Lord encounters him by
“the one word of God, which we must hear and to which we must give
trust and obedience in life and in death,”
Claiming that the interpreter stands under an authority outside his
own self meets the gravest objections today. It sounds patronizing. It car-
ries the bad associations of Protestant Scholasticism. Why should the
person who has found “the way out of his self-imposed intellectual
immaturity” (Kant) surrender again to the sorry state of being subject
to external authority? If revelation takes on the quality of an authority,
is it not inevitable that the authority of e.g., the Koran or the Book of
Mormon will be unshakably binding for persons of other cultural and
religious backgrounds? Christian revelation answers: there has been no
arrival at some intellectual adulthood by modern man. There has sim-
ply been an exchange of authorities. If once it was the Holy Scriptures,
 THE INTERPRETER @ 59

later it became successive contemporary dogmas of autonomy. “Light,”

“wisdom,” “knowledge,” “truth,” “freedom’”—all these are present
where God is the Lord (Pss 36:10; 119:18, 105, 130, 142, 154; Pr 1:7;
4:18; Jn 8:12, 32, 36; 9:39ff.; 14:6). Where, however, God’s lordship is
nullified, the stoicheia tou kosmou (basic principles of unregenerate
humanity) with their dogmas are in control. These are enslaving (dog-
matizesthe: Col 2:20) dogmas. Against this background it becomes
intelligible why e.g., Buddeus and Bengel energetically battled the ratio-
nalism of their time. They saw its consequence as bondage, not liberty.
They preferred the praeiudicum auctoritas alienae (presupposition of an
alien—1.e., divine—authority) to the praeiudicum auctoritatis propriae
(presupposition of one’s own—i.e., human and “reason’-based—
authority), because they were convinced that truth and freedom lay only
in the former. The latter, in Buddeus’ view, becomes a praeiudicum
praecipitantiae (a presupposition of unrestraint).'> Two and a half cen-
turies later, we have opportunity to test their thesis. The test results are
positive. We have become authorities unto ourselves without, generally
speaking, arriving at a better understanding of the Scripture. A revision,
therefore, of the way “alien” authority is viewed is a pressing priority.'°
But is it really an “alien” authority? Is it not rather the authority of him
who in Jesus Christ has become closer to us than a brother, who knows
man better than he knows himself because he created him, who loves
him more than all his self-love is capable of (1Sa 16:7; Ps 139; Jn 2:25)?
A true distinction, however, between the various authorities that lay
claim to us in the form of Bible or Koran or some other source is only
possible through the experiment of discipleship (Jn 7:17). So we see
once more that our understanding is embedded in the experience of
discipleship.
Discipleship, obedience, renewal, encounter, trust, love in the Holy
Spirit—these have all by now become clear to us as essential aspects of
understanding revelation. Starting from revelation, we asked the Spirit-
centered question: What does the Holy Spirit seek to effect in the inter-
preter? It is now time to consider that our understanding comprises a
60 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

process—even and precisely if we speak of the Holy Spirit, as is appro-

priate given revelation. Process: that refers to the Spirit-led understand-
ing that takes place in increments. Sometimes this may involve
circuitous, even erroneous routes. Nowhere is it promised that our under-
standing is infallible (cf. 1Co 13:9). Yet, a basic disposition of trust in
the enscripturated revelation will accompany the interpreter at every
step, as long as he works as a Christian interpreter in a comprehensive
sense. This basic disposition of trust expresses itself in the preliminary
extension of trust that the interpreter grants to the Bible. This extension
of trust forms an indissoluble element of the faith that arises through
encounter with Christ. It renews itself continually as it feeds on the vin-
dication of the biblical message in the entire life of the interpreter who
has been transformed by the Spirit. Decisive, irrefutable facts are
required to imperil the trustworthiness of the Scriptures in this or that
passage. That means that the burden of proof lies on the one who wishes
to dispute a scriptural utterance. “In the absence of contrary evidence
belief is reasonable.”'” On the other hand, we admittedly cannot provide
irrefutable proof of the trustworthiness of Scripture. Revelation pre-
serves its validity in a realm that transcends our proofs. The Holy Spirit
who speaks in revelation remains independent of human ingenuity.
Perhaps it could be put like this: the Christian interpreter’s experience
resists the hostile claims of criticism, but it is not the supporting pillar
of biblical revelation.'
The Holy Spirit leads the interpreter into the fellowship of believ-
ers (Ps 119:63; Ac 2:42; 4:32; Ro 12:4ff.; 1Co 12:4ff.; Eph 4:3ff.). The
presuppositions we have listed in this chapter are not, therefore, exclu-
sively his. They are shared by all believers. For this reason these pre-
suppositions cannot be dismissed as something “subjective” or arbitrary.
They are rather transsubjective.'” Hofmann expressed it in these words:
the interpreter must necessarily bring with him a “prejudice; namely,
that “which is based on the faith that he holds in common with
Christendom.”!®
On purely temporal grounds it makes sense that the interpreter who
 THE INTERPRETER @ 61

has been renewed by the Spirit approaches the Scripture “as a member
of the church . . . whose faith he shares.”""' That is, his understanding of
revelation is influenced by a tradition upon whose existence he had no
influence and whose effect in history [Wirkungsgeschichte] must be
carefully pondered.'? A perennial difference exists between Catliolic
and Protestant exegetes with respect to this tradition. For Catholics
church tradition possesses “the function of a norm for interpretation?"
“Every Catholic priest and teacher of the Holy Scripture obligates him-
self in his interpretation to obey the sensus established by the Mother
Church in her tradition:’''* The “Instructio de historica Evangeliorum
veritate” of the papal commission on the Bible of April 21, 1964, refers
the interpreter “‘to the help of God and the light of the Church-”'’ Indeed,
he should work under care of the Church (ductu Ecclesiae), fall in line
like others with the “admonitions of the Popes (hortamentis Summorum
Pontificum obsecundentes),’ and in his publications make it a matter of
conscience “never to diverge in the slightest from the clear teaching and
tradition of the Church (numquam a communi doctrina ac traditione
Ecclesiae vel minimum discedere).”''® Actual practice may look other-
wise, developments may be running in another direction. But until fur-
ther notice this fundamental tie to the tradition recognized by the
church’s teaching office remains in place. We are, then, dealing with an
authoritative exegesis in which the decisive aspect is furnished by the
ecclesiastical fellowship of faith.
It is well known that on the Protestant side there exists neither a
comparable tie to tradition (in spite of the confessions!) nor a compa-
rable ecclesiastical teaching office. Precisely for this reason the attempt
must be made to give a pneumatological account of what belonging to
the fellowship of faith means for the interpreter’s understanding of
Scripture. First, it is to be assumed that “the interpretation of the Holy
Scripture . . . [is] a task of the entire church”'"(cf. Eph 37188; 42138
5:10, 17; Ac 17:11). It is therefore not to be handed over to a “guild” of
biblical specialists. Second, then, the various gifts should serve to fur-
ther unity (cf. Ro 12:4ff.; 1Co 12:7ff.; Eph 4:12ff.). For the interpreter
62 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

of Scripture this means that he is dependent on exchange with and fra-

ternal correction of other believers. Third, however, the interpreter is an
“advocate for the contemporary Christian community.”''* He does not
represent merely himself but also the body of Christ, to which he
belongs. Moreover, he stands “in the service of the Gospel proclama-
tion’? Like all theology, interpretation of Scripture is not /’art pour
l’art (art for art’s sake) but rather responsible activity within the param-
eters of the fellowship of Jesus Christ. Francke therefore defined theo-
logical science as a “‘means of the furtherance of the kingdom of God
under the leadership of the Holy Spirit.’!”° This expresses the apologetic
and missiological dimension of scriptural interpretation (cf. 1Pe 3:15;
Col 3:17). This way of looking at the theological task was widespread,
however, far beyond the pietistic, orthodox, and fundamentalist tradi-
tion, as E. von Dobschiitz’s admonition shows: “Every scientific exegete
should nurture the awareness that the goal of his work is practical appli-
cation.”'?'! There has also been protest, nevertheless, in liberal circles
against linking scientific exegesis with church and practical applica-
tion.'”? If one bears in mind the idea of incorporation into the body of
Christ, then F. Liicke’s remark makes sense: “all the theological disci-
plines” are “thoroughly . . . subordinate” to the church “by rights” and
“‘must be obedient to” it.'” In any case it is not workable, looking at the
matter from a pneumatico-centric point of view, to set theological sci-
ence as teacher, monitor, or the like over against the church. It is rather
to be integrated into the church. The body’s understanding is deeper,
broader, and better than that of any individual member.

NECESSARY CAUTION

Every hermeneutical chapter has its dangers. If to this point we have

stressed the effect of the Holy Spirit on the interpreter, it is appropriate
here to warn against exaggerated emphasis on pneumatology. Such
exaggeration can threaten a proper understanding of revelation and
shows disdain for methodological rigor.'** We will deal with this more
 THE INTERPRETER @ 63

fully below. For the moment we merely assert that the Spirit of the
Scripture discloses himself through “due painstaking research,’ as
Bengel put it.'*° Or in biblical terms: in the fully devoted akriboo (accu-
rate understanding) that is actualized in the Bible itself (cf. 1Co 3:11f,;
Pss 1:2; 119:59, 66; Da 9:2; Lk 1:3; Eph 5:15, to name only a few
passages).
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 : . CHAPTER SIX

Ways of Understanding
Revelation

RESTRICTION TO HISTORICAL UNDERSTANDING

Interpretation is presently restricted through an almost exclusive fixation
with historical understanding. What can be illuminated historically is
regarded as understood. This view becomes still further restricted when
the origin of a living utterance is confused with its hermeneutical decod-
ing. Many share H. Gunkel’s “cardinal conviction” that “we are not ina
position to understand a person, a time, an idea, in isolation from their
pre-history. Only when we know the history out of which they emerge
can we speak of actual, vital understanding.”!
A number of reasons have contributed to the rise of this restricted
view. An external reason might be that after 1875 or so almost no com-
prehensive presentations of hermeneutics were produced in Protestant
circles.” It is no wonder that historical-critical research and hermeneu-
tical reflection came to resemble look-alike twins. Another reason lies
in concentration on the intention of the human author, pioneered by
Herder and Schleiermacher and energetically opposed today by
66 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

Ricoeur. A fine example here is the textbook on hermeneutics by Karl

August Gottlieb Keil (1810), in which we read: “To understand the sense
of a statement or writing means nothing other than to think just the same
thing when encountering the statement or writing that the speaker or
author thought when he wrote it, or that he wanted his hearers or read-
ers to think.” Keil called this “with justification a historical” explana-
tion.* A third reason presumably lies in the rejection of the multiple
sense of Scripture, which grew in the course of the nineteenth century—
in resistance to Schleiermacher!> The same K. A. G. Keil mentioned
above permitted there to be only one sole sense of any Scripture, rea-
soning that “no rational author” would give his words “more than one
sense,’ not even in the New Testament.* Dilthey went so far as to call
allegory an “utterly useless artifice’” Writers like H. Olshausen, whose
1824 essay “Ein Wort itiber tieferen Schriftsinn [A Word Regarding
Scripture’s Deeper Meaning]” proposed a renewal of allegorical inter-
pretation, are exceptions.* A fourth reason is glimpsed in the tight rela-
tion that was posited between “scientific character” and “intellectual
understanding.” That turned out to mean that historical-scientific exe-
gesis was the exclusive means of assuring an adequate understanding of
the biblical texts. Thus U. Wilckens arrived at this conclusion: “The only
scientifically responsible interpretation of the Bible is an investigation
of the biblical texts that” operates “‘according to methodologically con-
sistent application of historical reason.”

OPPOSING TENDENCIES

If some were convinced that only historical-scientific research could

arrive at an appropriate understanding of the Bible, others took a dif-
ferent view, raising objections from two sides.
One side took note of the so-called laity. It must be admitted, even
in view of the sharpest points of disagreement between critical science
and “church belief,’ that “those who are unable to read are nevertheless
also among the blessed.”"' This was to assume, however, that an adequate
 WAYS OF UNDERSTANDING REVELATION @ 67

grasp of the biblical message was also accessible to those bereft of “his-
torical” understanding. This in turn forced recognition of the fact that,
generally speaking, access to the Scripture could not be seen as “depen-
dent on scientific research.” Otherwise a “papacy of experts” would be
founded, ‘a situation worse than undue exercise of interpretive authority
by the papacy itself.'? Occasionally the viewpoint was even expressed
that on the whole the laity is “by no means inferior or disadvantaged in
comparison to the theologians.”"* The importance of lay-level scriptural
interpretation was underscored by the fact that substantial impetus in the
lives of theologians has come about through laypersons. For example,
the blind Peter Kohn in Litibeck became a highly influential spiritual
advisor for A. H. Francke.'*
This positive assessment of lay input met energetic opposition,
however. “One must acquire a very high level of intellectual prowess
before the intellectual world takes note of what one has to say.’'> This
quote from Spranger is indicative of the attitude of a number of theolo-
gians. While “church belief” was glibly characterized as “‘artless,” “sim-
plistic,’ and so forth, a “competent,’'® intellectual-congenial
interpretation was seen to be at work precisely where the concern was
for “‘scientific” interaction with the text. Today this kind of high regard
for “scientific exegesis” may be found, e.g., especially in the work of
Barr: “For critical scholarship the standard and criterion for judging the
validity of exegesis lies no longer in church doctrine, but in research.””
Mussner countered this and similar claims with the objection that they
amount to a “private gnosticism.”"’
Apart from questions raised regarding lay understanding, the
monopoly of the historical understanding of the Bible was disputed by
a second line of thought. This was the much-discussed area of the mul-
tidimensionality of scriptural interpretation. If one wished, e.g., to give
a positive assessment of Luther, then one must also acknowledge that
historical-critical procedure is not necessary to understand the Bible
aright. Researchers like R. Bring accordingly called attention to dimen-
sions of the Bible “that a purely historical observation would not have
68 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

been able to discover’? Oepke emphasized in discussion with Windisch

that “historical exegesis” is not the only exegesis that is scientific.”° Even
without confessional considerations exegetes came to the conclusion
that historical understanding should not be granted absolute status: “it
would be false?’ says Westermann, “for us to presume to have found [i.e.,
in historical understanding] the exclusively correct, absolute, and eter-
nally valid method of explaining the Bible’! In his study of hermeneu-
tics Torm attempts to reflect also on “other forms of understanding.’”
Most of all it is Catholic theologians who champion the view that along-
side of historical research there are “rightly also other ways to the truth
of the Scripture?’
Regarding the Catholic position, it unambiguously involves a con-
nection with the doctrine of the multiple meaning of Scripture. Does
that also apply to Protestants? We will have to consider this connection
below.

A LOOK AT THE HISTORY OF EXEGESIS

The most emphatic rejection of the exclusive dominance of historical

understanding comes from the history of scriptural exegesis itself. A
summary glimpse of the history of interpretation will suffice to illustrate
this point.
Early Christian exegesis of the Bible arose in a milieu where
attributing multiple meaning to Scripture was totally acceptable. Jewish
interpreters of the first century were convinced that the Holy Scriptures
contained more than what the sensus literalis offered. Longenecker dis-
tinguishes between four forms of Jewish interpretation: literalist,
midrashic, pesher, and allegorical.”> Yet it was “literalistic’” exegesis that
furnished the starting point—also for Philo and at Qumran.”* All of
these forms of interpretation were used by Jesus and the authors of the
New Testament.” Longenecker thinks that for Jesus the pesher method
was the most characteristic. Pesher viewed Old Testament prophecy as
 WAYS OF UNDERSTANDING REVELATION @ 69

having “a veiled eschatological meaning’’* Scholars commonly

attribute allegorical and typological interpretation to Paul.”
In the second and third centuries A.D. a multidimensional
approach to interpretation continued. Thus Justin interpreted the Old
Testament both historically and Christocentrically.® The role of allegory
was disputed. Marcion rejected it—proof that even the pure sensus lit-
eralis cannot prevent heresy.*' In view of the allegorical excesses of the
Gnostics, interpreters like Irenaeus saw themselves forced to insist on
the clarity of scriptural expressions and to stem the allegorical tide.”
Alexandrian interpretation, on the other hand, systematically developed
allegorical approaches, first through Clement and then most notably
through Origen.* For Origen, it is true, all of Scripture’s statements pos-
sessed a spiritual meaning, but not all possessed a literal meaning. He
developed a doctrine of threefold meaning: somatic (historical), psy-
chological (moral), and pneumatic (mystical).** Nevertheless, the
Egyptian bishop Nepos protested against Alexandrian allegorizing in
the name of biblical realism.**
In the fourth and fifth centuries one finds alternating positions.
The Antiochene school and Jerome are at least reserved toward allegory.
According to Grant, the Antiochenes insisted on the “historical reality
of the biblical revelation’’** He speaks of a “literal-historical method” in
Antioch.” Still, Jerome clung to Scripture’s typological meaning. The
“intellegentia spiritualis” is necessary and results in a plus—not a
minus!—over against the “‘carneus sensus.”** Augustine, who was
helped to conversion by allegorical explanation of the Scriptures, wrote
De doctrina christiania (A.D. 397), a work that became the hermeneu-
tical standard for the era after him. He based his views on the Liber
Regularum, which he regarded as the “premier manual of biblical
hermeneutics,” written by Ticonius (A.D. 382?). Ticonius focused on the
illumination of Old Testament prophecy. Accordingly he sought to inter-
act responsibly with allegorical interpretation.” Augustine seeks to
grasp as much of the Scripture as possible under the rubric of our sal-
vation. He is convinced of the legitimacy of a “multiplex sensus liter-
70 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

alis of Scripture’ This conviction was closely related to a similar view

that the biblical writers themselves had intended Scripture to have a mul-
tiple sense.*!
This adage is commonly quoted as a summary of the Middle Ages:
“Littera gesta docet, quid credas allegoria, moralis quid agas, quo ten-
das (quid speres) anagogia” (“The letter teaches the events; the allegor-
ical [sense of Scripture] teaches what you should believe; the moral
[sense of Scripture] teaches what you should do; the eschatological
[sense of Scripture] teaches what you should strive for, place your hope
in’”).** Next to this fourfold meaning of the Holy Scripture—historical,
dogmatic, ethical, eschatological**—other forms of interpretation make
their appearance. Allegory was variously assessed. The multiple mean-
ing of Scripture, however, remained generally recognized. Its hermeneu-
tical advantage lay in the fact that the text “was worked through
thoroughly:
It is well known that Luther concentrated on the sensus literalis:
“whoever interprets according to the literal sense finds in [Scripture]
strength, doctrine, and skill’’** Yet Luther’s approach was differentiated.
For not only the “simple sense of Scripture’s words” but also “the expe-
rience of the heart” possesses authority.” One is reminded of Luther’s
remark two days before his death: “Scripturas sacras sciat se nemo gus-
tasse satis, nisi centum annis cum Prophetis Ecclesias gubernarit” (““No
one should suppose that he has fed sufficiently on the Holy Scriptures
if he has not led the church for a hundred years with the prophets”’).*
Because #1) Scripture presents words having a clear, “simple” sense”
and #2) the practical experience of faith is decisive, laypersons can also
interpret the Bible adequately. “Therefore every Christian is able to
extract truth from the Bible. He is not tied to human authorities that
mandate certain interpretations.’*° Sometimes laypersons are superior
interpreters.°' By no means did Luther categorically reject allegory.
There are times when allegorical interpretation is necessary, as e.g.,
when the text’s context or the intention of the author demands it.*?
In general it can be asked whether the rise to dominance of the sen-
 WAYS OF UNDERSTANDING REVELATION @ 71

sus literalis is only the fruit of the Reformation, or whether it is not also
due to the Renaissance.®
On the so-called left wing of the Reformation among the
Anabaptists and spiritualists are the most varied hermeneutical out-
looks. The Anabaptists generally held to the strict sense of the words of
the Scripture.* The spiritualists, in contrast, turn away from the surface
meaning of the words. Decisive for Hans Biinderlin is the inner word.
The outer word is only the midwife and witness.* For Christian
Entfelder all depends on the Spirit who gives the living word. Without
the living word the Scripture remains a dead letter and subject to all
manner of error.*°
Matthias Flacius, the “greatest theoretician of old Protestant
hermeneutics,” rejected the multiple meaning of Scripture.** He
observed, however, that the genre of allegory is found in Scripture itself.
For such cases he prescribes allegorical interpretation.** This confirms
that even where revelation is the starting point, interpretation can be
broader than only “literal” or “historical?’®
Protestant Scholasticism’s interpretation of Scripture insists on the
preeminence of the literal sense. As the memory of Flacius recedes,
however, there was the tendency to recognize a “spiritual sense” along-
side the literal. Hollaz, e.g., endorses a “mystical sense” which he fur-
ther subdivides into allegorical, typical, and parabolical senses. But the
literal sense remains the basis and primary framework.°!
In the era following Protestant Scholasticism the streams of inter-
pretation divide. Federal theology and Pietism show renewed concern
for Scripture’s multiple sense.* Coccejus, following his teacher
Amesius, proceeds from the assumption of a twofold meaning in
Scripture: the grammatical sense and the spiritual sense. That makes
possible a typological interpretation of the Scripture. Bengel likewise
looks for a spiritual meaning in Scripture.™ In 1771 Christian Friedrich
Schmid of Leipzig, influenced by Bengel, describes “two stages” of the
art of interpretation. Meaning emerges first from a preliminary, philo-
logical stage and then from a deeper, spiritual stage.®
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On the other hand, where the Enlightenment holds sway, both

typological and allegorical interpretation fall on hard times.* As early
as Spinoza the demand for a purely historical interpretation comes to the
fore.” Increasingly, the historical-critical method is regarded as the only
legitimate exegetical approach. Grant states that “many critics came to
regard criticism as identical with exegesis.”®* This outlook furnished the
chief line of analysis for the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.”
Not until the rise of so-called pneumatic exegesis does the ques-
tion of Scripture’s multiple meaning become urgent once more. The first
stirrings are found in one of the movement’s forerunners, J. L. Samuel
Lutz (1849).” A fundamental new beginning was then carried out by
Karl Girgensohn in the 1920s. In his treatise on the inspiration of Holy
Scripture (second edition, 1926) he asks, among other things, “Does the
present hour perhaps dictate that we seek a renewal of the doctrine of
Scripture’s twofold meaning? Could it perhaps be that here lies nothing
short of a liberating solution to the great difficulties that modern theol-
ogy is enmeshed in due to overemphasis on the historical mode of analy-
sis?’ In the same connection we read: “Is it not calamitous that we still
cling to the doctrine of Scripture’s simple meaning and ignore the
motives that have again and again led to acceptance of Scripture’s mul-
tiple meaning in the history of interpretation?’”’” Girgensohn and those
who follow him seek the solution in a two-stage exegesis.” The first
stage is called historical, historical-psychological, literal, or critical. The
second stage of interpretation is the pneumatic, normative-pneumatic,
or superhistorical.” Within this framework allegorical interpretation is
hermeneutically assessed and endorsed.* We will consider this two-
stage doctrine separately at a later point. For the moment we simply
point out that the multiple meaning of Scripture finds renewed recogni-
tion here in pneumatic exegesis.”
In the interest of completeness it should be mentioned again that
Roman Catholicism has expressly endorsed the sensus spiritualis in the
sense spoken of by Pius XII (“Non omnis sane spiritualis sensus a sacra
 WAYS OF UNDERSTANDING REVELATION @ 73

Scriptura excluditur” [“Not every spiritual sense is excluded from Holy

Scripture on the basis of reason’’]).”
What is the result of this survey of the history of exegesis? Times
and schools that exclusively or almost exclusively venerate a single-
meaning dpproach to Scripture are the exception. Restriction to the his-
torical understanding is limited to certain trends since the
Enlightenment. It has been normal for both Jewish and Christian inter-
preters to work with a multiple-meaning approach.

REVELATION AS STARTING POINT

By now we need to return to the basic principle established earlier of

making revelation the starting point. What help does revelation give us
toward an understanding of itself? In putting the question this way we
orient ourselves “‘to discern the claim of revelatory occurrence enshrined
in Scripture itself?’”
According to biblical revelation, understanding takes place at three
levels: dynamic, ethical, and cognitive.
Dynamic understanding occurs where revelation addresses the
person directly and transforms him. The addressee grasps that he must
change his ways, or has the opportunity to make major changes in him-
self. When the tax collector at the tollbooth heard Jesus’ summons
“Follow me,’ he understood that he must cease the kind of activity that
had characterized him to that point and take up a new course in life (Mt
9:9). Therefore “he rose and followed him” (RSV). When a powerful
evangelist calls for decision and the hearer is inwardly smitten, he will
along with others or perhaps alone make a conscious commitment of his
life to Jesus Christ. When my morning devotional guide says, “Do not
worry about tomorrow” (Mt 6:34 NIV), I can commit my cares to the
Lord in prayer. In all these cases a helpful preunderstanding is present.
But the point is not so much the cognitive or other enlargement of that
preunderstanding. Rather, God’s revelation uses this preunderstanding
as an instrument to call forth transformation. Understanding and
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response form a unified event. Understanding takes place dynamically,

or, to put it another way, through transformation.
Ethical understanding takes place where a person already lives in
a positive relationship to revelation and now desires its long-term appli-
cation to his practical life. Here understanding takes place because a per-
son wants to obey. And that person wants to understand in order to be
able to obey. An illustration of this is seen in the question posed to Jesus
by the rich young ruler (Mt 19:16): “What good thing should I do in
order to acquire eternal life?”
Cognitive understanding takes place where a person wants to com-
prehend revelation rightly in order to clarify it in terms of form and con-
tent prior to making inferences from it or passing it along to others.
Cognitive understanding is preparation or transition. This is exempli-
fied, e.g., in the question directed to Jesus, “Which is the greatest com-
mand in the Law?” (Mt 22:36; cf. Mk 12:28-34).
Below we will reflect with more precision on these various ways
of understanding revelation.

DYNAMIC UNDERSTANDING

As we have seen, dynamic understanding takes place where revelation

meets the person directly, transforming and profoundly altering him.
Through contact with the Word the person is not who he was before. A
dynamic transformation has taken place. The Word “‘cut[s] to the heart”
(Ac 2:37 KJV).
It must be graphically underscored that this has nothing to do with
emotionalism or ecstatic excess.” Revelation meets a person in the heart,
and thus also in the intellect. It does not meet him somewhere beyond
the person as a central whole. Nor does the dynamic transformation
mentioned above remove the responsibility of response, of decision.
Dynamic understanding takes place just as well in a situation where the
person is compliant as where the person drags his heels. In any case the
coordinating center of his life has been profoundly touched. Even if he
 WAYS OF UNDERSTANDING REVELATION @ 75

is recalcitrant, he is not merely the same person that he was before.

When the rich young ruler—in contrast to the tax collector in Matthew
9:9—declined to accept the call to discipleship (Mt 19:22), his life was
nevertheless altered from that which it had previously been: “He went
away sad’” (NIV). Those who at Pentecost were “cut to the heart” (Ac
2:37) were also affected in their intellect, in their understanding. They
had to give a responsible, conscious answer. “There is no repentance in
a state of ecstatic excess.,’®°
What does this say about our understanding? First, where and
when the dynamic word of revelation penetrates our lives is beyond our
control. That means that we can, to be sure, reflect on it hermeneutically,
but we cannot furnish hermeneutical systematization of it.
Second, we have to recognize that the occurrences that are often
most important take place where particularly hermeneutical systemati-
zation, and thus also strict methodological description, lie beyond our
ken. The boundary of scientific hermeneutics is to be set down clearly
here. It must clearly acknowledge this: what makes the creature into a
believer, what makes the “old person” a reborn person, is basically inac-
cessible to it. There is no hermeneutical penetration to the essence of
conversion. This is, then, an early indicator that hermeneutics must
restrict itself to a considerable extent to the cognitive sphere.
What role, then, does human understanding play in dynamic
encounter with the revelatory word? First, we note that revelation as it
really took place in the Bible used normal human languages (Hebrew,
Aramaic, Greek). The Spirit did not choose a unique language. Revelation
does not go forth in glossalalia; at most it is occasionally responded to in
that way. To this extent philological understanding on the part of people
is presupposed and possible. We do not know to what extent man’s fall
into sin changed human speech. This much is, however, clear from reve-
lation: human speech that was actually uttered could serve as an adequate
medium of communication of divine revelation even after the Fall. And
precisely for this reason, philological understanding has its place even in
a fallen world (cf. chaps. 5 and 13). So then, the revelatory word goes out
76 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

to concrete human creatures who are gifted in keeping with the will of the
Creator (Pss 8:6ff.; 139:13ff.), chosen in the state they are and in places
and times that God determines (cf. Da 2:21ff.; Gal 4:4). Included in all
this is the prior preunderstanding of the one who receives revelation. Now
God reveals himself precisely in the midst of this human condition. The
concrete creatureliness, the concrete historical place, the concrete time,
the concrete preunderstanding become instruments with whose help God
makes himself accessible and understandable.*' This all still applies when
in this dynamic encounter changes are carried out at the same time. By
opening himself up—which is possible due to the way he was created as
well as his prior history—man permits God to carry out the necessary
changes. If he closes and hardens himself, then his seeing eyes have not
seen and his hearing ears not heard (cf. Isa 6:9ff.; Mt 13:13ff.). The
Epitome of the Formula of Concord brings the heart of the matter to
expression: “the hearing of God’s word” is necessary, and it is God’s will
“that one hear his word and not cover his ears” (II, Affirmativa, 3). In this
dynamic encounter with the revelatory word, then, the close tie between
understanding and obeying is especially impressive. If the person opens
himself, if he complies with what has been revealed, then he obeys, and
only after that has truly understood. Understanding issues forth in new
understanding. It becomes a process, and thus becomes whole.
From the above it follows that on the level of dynamic understand-
ing there is no difference in principle between “theologians” and “‘layper-
sons.” That is, in many cases so-called laypersons possess better and
deeper understanding than so-called theologians. That can be seen most
of all in testimonial, missionary, evangelistic, and confessional preaching,
which evince a marked affinity for the dynamic dimension of revelation.

ETHICAL UNDERSTANDING

Ethical understanding is characterized by its focus on the application of

what has been understood rather than primarily on the enlargement of
understanding. Typical is the searching question, “What must I/we do
 WAYS OF UNDERSTANDING REVELATION @ 77

in order to... ?” (cf. Mt 19:16; Ac 2:37; 16:30). Here revelation is no

longer impetus to new life but an outline for new life. Obedience is
already basically established. What is sought is its concrete expression.
Clearly, the intellectual interest here is different in principle from
the interest typifying, say, historical research. Perhaps rabbinic doctrinal
discussion is most closely related to ethical understanding.
In chapter 5 we attempted to reflect on the effect of the Holy Spirit
on the interpreter. The question arises whether the effect of the Holy
Spirit as described in revelation does not evince a particular nearness to
that act of understanding that is determined by deliberate obedience.
This question must be answered negatively for this reason: the Holy
Spirit’s effect encompasses all areas, the dynamic, the ethical, and the
cognitive. Another reason for a negative answer is because the ethical
understanding, or the intended obedience, is not automatically identical
with faith.
It is rather the case that the process of understanding in the ethi-
cal sphere is more variegated, and in some cases more complicated, than
in dynamic understanding. For ethical understanding is characterized far
less by that directness that binds together Word and response, God’s rev-
elation and transformation of the person, in dynamic understanding.
Clearly, in ethical understanding research and reflection occupy a more
prominent place.
As a result, ethical understanding makes greater use of cognitive
forms that we will become familiar with below. Indeed, it can subordi-
nate itself to cognitive modes of understanding to achieve its goal. It is
also more noticeably open to hermeneutical reflection and regulation
than dynamic understanding is. Consequently, this is a point where
“theologians” and “laypersons” begin an increasing divergence from
each other. A marked shift in the direction of “theology” takes place. Yet
the formation of a special science is not yet so far advanced as in cog-
nitive understanding. Those possessing ethical understanding typically
serve as the doctrinal instructors for the church.
One factor demands particular attention here. To the extent that
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human reflection exerts influence, the danger of subjectivism grows. It

is thus entirely natural that teachers with distinctive views arise and
begin to form schools of thought, and that battles over true and false
doctrine continually ensue.
To offset the danger of subjectivism, integration of the person
within the fellowship of believers must be emphasized. This took place
already in the New Testament. For in 1 Corinthians 14:29 the testing of
what was preached was made obligatory. The early Christian worship
service was the place where the fellowship made its appearance as the
body of Christ. In the setting of the fellowship of believers, doctrinally
sound proclamation was laid down and purified.

COGNITIVE UNDERSTANDING

If dynamic understanding tends toward transformation through revela-

tion, and ethical understanding toward the application of revelation, then
cognitive understanding stresses the knowledge of revelation (i.e.,
Scripture). Its focus is on the enlargement of previous understanding.
Here the course leading to application is longer, as a rule, than in
ethical understanding. The danger thus also increases that knowledge
itself will be viewed as a sufficient goal in and of itself. That is, in a
sense, the gnostic heresy that has plagued the church from the
beginning.
An additional danger lies in the direction of increasing abstraction.
The distance from the directness that characterizes dynamic encounter
grows beyond even that found in ethical understanding. In extreme cases
the “relevance of understanding” is lost sight of.*? Practical ministry and
Christian experience may then be entirely negated. At times exegesis
then loses itself in hypotheses and threatens to become an idle game.
The danger of subjectivism remains a continuing threat. It is coun-
terbalanced, however, by the verifiability of results that the science of
exegesis demands.
It is in the realm of cognitive understanding that the problem of the
 WAYS OF UNDERSTANDING REVELATION @ 79

so-called laity becomes acute. For here, in the cognitive sphere,

processes of understanding lend themselves most readily to method-
ological regulation. Indeed, this is where scientific theology practically
demands a reflected hermeneutic with related methods. These postu-
lates—appropriaté in themselves—facilitate the scientific enterprise.
But they tend to exclude the laity.
To counteract this, it must be insisted that cognitive understanding
is only the preparation, albeit a necessary one, for the witness of
Christian believers. Whatever is attained cognitively is worthless if it
hinders or prevents this witness. In that sense one could say that theo-
logical science furnishes the bridge from revelation to the ministry of
Christian believers. This way of looking at the matter excludes two com-
mon errors: #1) hostility toward science, and #2) gullible acceptance of
all of science’s claims.
What makes cognitive understanding essential? By way of sum-
mary, the following four considerations may be mentioned: #1) for
appropriately comprehensive praise of God; #2) for doctrine; #3) for the
missiological spread of the faith, which should not be allowed to take
place only under emotion-driven auspices; and #4) for apologetics
(Pe 3215).
We observe that cognitive understanding can be achieved through
various pathways. Starting from revelation, we attempt in what follows
to describe individual possibilities under the rubric of cognitive under-
standing. It is surprising to find that currently only a few concrete dis-
tinctions are being made, although many authors defend or even demand
recognition of a pluralistic approach to possible ways of understanding.
Frederik Torm, one of the few who bucks the trend by making concrete
distinctions, cited the following “principles of interpretation” in 1930:
“dogmatic” interpretation, “allegorical” interpretation, “typological”
interpretation, and the “analogy of Scripture.’*’ In 1979 Ralph Martin
described five approaches to or perspectives on the New Testament:
#1) the “dogmatic approach,’ #2) the “impressionistic approach,” #3)
the “grammatical-historical method,” #4) “the meaning for the twenti-
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eth century,’ and #5) the “salvation history” approach. Only #3) and #5)
appeared to Martin to hold much promise.*
Below we discuss in turn the historical, dogmatic, typological,
allegorical, and prophetic understandings of Scripture. Each of these
amounts to a subset of cognitive understanding.

HISTORICAL UNDERSTANDING

In historical understanding, the Bible is understood using the vantage

point that history furnishes. It is based first on the assumption that God
acted in keeping with the claims of revelation. Indeed, it views God as
constitutive for our concept of history: his action is what creates that
which we call “history” in the first place. Without God there would be
no existence and no occurrence. It is based second on the assumption
that the Bible is itself a document arising out of this action and is thus
also a document of history. For God acts in steps. His revelation is pro-
gressive. That is seen, e.g., in the sequence of covenants he establishes.
Historical understanding is based third on the assumption that the
enscripturated revelation itself goes back to history in its origins and
what it relates.
Let us clarify these three considerations underlying historical
understanding as each is offered to us in revelation itself.
“God . . . calls things that are not as if they were” (Ro 4:17). All
that exists, except God himself, arose through God’s creative word.
“Without him,” and that includes his creative word, “nothing was made
that has been made” (Jn 1:3 NIV). All that exists is enabled to exist and
to have a history because God wills it. And it goes no further or longer
than he permits. An “‘atheistic” concept of history is, looked at from the
standpoint of revelation, a contradiction in itself. Yet creation does not
simply follow some rigidly predetermined course. The sovereign God
rather exerts influence on what occurs where and when he wishes. He
himself generates fresh history out of fresh acts. His word and deeds
direct and alter even the space-time world that arose after the Fall. There
 WAYS OF UNDERSTANDING REVELATION @ 81

is only a difference in degree between “salvation history” and “secular

history.’ Both are God’s creations (cf. Isa 45:5—7), just.as are the times
in which persons live their lives (cf. Rev 10:6 with Da 2:21; 12:7).
Within this framework God extends his call to man (cf. Ge 12:1ff.),
places hint under his promise (cf. Ge 12:2f.; 15:5; etc.), and fulfills his
word to him (cf. Jos 21:45; 24:2ff.). God establishes his people, protects
them, instructs them, and brings them to the goal toward which his
promise was directed (cf. Heb 3:7-4:13). None of this, however, takes
place in a side alley of the cosmos or in an enraptured state of altered
consciousness: it is rather carried out before the eyes of the nations (Ex
12:29ff.; Est 7-9). Revelation in the form of the Bible exposes this activ-
ity of God. It contains fact and interpretation simultaneously. Revelation
offers us a historical dimension of the Bible so that it can be read with
profit and understood more readily.
Revelation in its biblical form has itself come into existence, more-
over, in the course of history. Prior to Moses there were the traditions of
the patriarchs. The Mosaic Pentateuch does not yet know of the procla-
mation of the prophets. Over the span of a millennium and a half the Old
Testament grew to its present extent. Not every word fits perfectly into
every later time. Similarly, the New Testament required a half century
to reach its present dimensions, a compilation of various individual rev-
elations. We speak here of “progressive revelation.” Its growth to
enscripturated form, the Bible, presents research with a fruitful oppor-
tunity. If we accompany it along the course of its growth, it will grant
us valuable insights into the work of God.
Finally, revelation in its biblical form wishes to direct our attention
to the history for which we have God to thank. Long ago Moses was
called on to remind Israel, which had just emerged in Egypt, of the “God
of your fathers” (Ex 3:15). The generation of the Exodus was supposed
to pass on to its children the memory of the events that took place in
those years. Historical understanding of the Bible is made unavoidably
necessary simply for the sake of children’s questions as well as their
instruction (Ex 12:26f.). No wonder that historiography as it arose in the
82 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

Middle Ages and then in modern history owes its origins to the Bible!
With Israel’s confession of Deuteronomy 26:5ff., the history-based con-
fession in general was born. Every Israelite was instructed in history and
in the grateful recollection of God’s deeds (cf. also Pss 78, 106). No reli-
gion shows such a close tie between faith and history as the religion of
the Bible. Close consideration of history becomes an admonition and
thus a part of the Bible’s proclamation (Jos 24:2ff.). The prophets refer
back to the history of Israel ( cf. Hos 2:16ff.; 8:13; 9:3ff.; Am 9:7ff.; Mal
3:22). Indeed, the entire New Testament is unthinkable without its view
of the history described in the Old Testament. For this reason, histori-
cal understanding of the Bible is necessary and worthwhile.

DOGMATIC UNDERSTANDING

The dogmatic understanding of Scripture uses the doctrinal teaching

that it has gained from the Bible to arrive at a comprehensive under-
standing of the Bible.
While the legitimacy of historical research is hardly disputed
today, dogmatic understanding of the Bible is hotly debated. Protestant
assessment of a dogmatic approach to scriptural interpretation was bur-
dened from the beginning with the precedent in Catholicism, in which
church tradition and thereby also church dogma assumed normative sta-
tus. Thus Montaigne, e.g., charged Luther with subjecting the Scriptures
to the interpretation of men. One ought rather, insisted Montaigne, tread
“the way of dependence on the Church established by the Church.”®
What Montaigne wanted is clear: the transsubjective, dogmatically sup-
ported interpretation of the church ought to hinder Protestant subjec-
tivism. Montaigne’s reflections become understandable when one
considers the profound shaking of faith’s certainty and the conflicting
conclusions to which critical Protestant research led. In the eyes of
philosophers the situation looked like this: “The Protestant principle of
individual liberty of conscience, which indeed first made possible unfet-
tered science and its ‘autonomy, leads to the troubling result that no
 WAYS OF UNDERSTANDING REVELATION @ 83

finally certain standard of universal validity seems to reign in this per-

sonal realm of conscience. The outcome is the anarchy of values. . . ””
Looked at in this way, one cannot simply push aside the demand that the
Bible be interpreted in keeping with the church’s confession (“the anal-
ogy of faith’). -
This demand appeared in various forms. An extreme position was
taken here by Ferdinand Delbriick, who in 1826 wanted to elevate the
rule of faith rather than the Scripture to the highest norm.” J. L. Lutz
(1849) proceeded from the assumption that the church was there before
Scripture was; therefore the demand for scriptural interpretation that
supports church teaching is justified. Scripture must be interpreted
according to the analogy of faith.** For Hans Emil Weber historical
research performed only a “preliminary function,’ albeit a “founda-
tional” one. The dogmatician, not the exegete, makes the decisions in
interpreting Scripture.® Yet the dogmatician to the present hour suffers
from the real “contradiction” between the exegetical and dogmatic dis-
ciplines of theology.”
It should also be noted that the demand for a dogmatic under-
standing of the Scripture is not restricted to parties within the church.
The same demand arises where Marxist literary theory is applied to the
Bible.®!
How much justification should be accorded to a dogmatic under-
standing of Scripture from the basis of a theology that is based on rev-
elation? For the decisive factor is not a demand derived from
experience but rather the way of understanding that revelation itself
affords. Every proclamation should take place “in keeping with the
analogy of faith?’ as Romans 12:6 puts it. In this context “faith” is the
relationship with God that comes about by the new covenant as speci-
fied by Jesus and the Holy Scriptures of Israel. Romans 12:6 does not,
then, refer to an ecclesiastical confession. It likely speaks rather of the
content of the faith that the new covenant community possesses.
According to 1 Corinthians 14:29, the congregation’s proclamation is
undergirded by the discerning judgment of the believers who are pres-
84 e BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

ent. In this and similar statements in the New Testament two things
become clear. #1) Scriptural interpretation, even when it is called
“prophecy,” creates no new revelatory source to be placed alongside the
revelation divinely given to Jesus and his apostles. #2) Scriptural inter-
pretation is not a purely individual act but depends on the agreement
and mutual responsibility of the congregation.
To apply this to our question regarding a dogmatic understanding
of Scripture: such an understanding is a legitimate way of cognitive
understanding so long as “dogmatic” refers to the content of the faith of
Christian communities in all times.
The concept “dogmatic” may not, therefore, be interpreted as a cer-
tain theological school of thought. It may also not be understood as a
grid of understanding that is placed on a higher level than Scripture and
into which Scripture is made to fit. Every impression that “dogmatic”
amounts to a “confessional” interpretive schema must be avoided. In the
same way the impression must be avoided that dogmas, traditions, or
church confessions comprise a second, equally authoritative source of
knowledge alongside the Scriptures.
Positively, a “dogmatic” understanding of revelation validates the
point of view of biblical doctrine. It preserves interpretation from bog-
ging down in atomistic exegesis or individual, fragmented points of
view.”” Moreover, it obligates the interpreter to take note of other inter-
pretations that have arisen in Christian circles, whether in the hoary past
or the fluid present. The more that these interpretations have determined
the church’s way, the less they should be overlooked. For this reason the
confessions, especially those of early Christianity, play a prominent role.
Here it is obvious by what was said above that every ecclesiastical con-
fession and Christian tradition is subordinated to Scripture, not placed
over it. No council, no confession has the power to alter a clear state-
ment of Scripture. A third positive effect of dogmatic understanding lies
in the help and spadework that it accomplishes for later interpretations.
Understanding of revelation is not furthered by a propensity for “talk-
ing about and listening to the latest ideas” (Ac 17:21). What matters is
 WAYS OF UNDERSTANDING REVELATION @ 85

rather the fruitful preservation of continuity with the apostolic doctrine

in all times (cf. Ac 2:4; Php 3:1). The dogmatic understanding of
Scripture brings with it a protective, almost “conservative” element into
interpretation. This is, however, a necessary conservatism that estab-
lishes the Christian community in understanding.
One more item should be noted: it would be a misunderstanding
to regard “dogmatic” understanding as an exclusive concern of the theo-
logical discipline of “dogmatics.” The participation here of both exege-
sis and dogmatics is called for, along with all other activities in the
Christian community that impinge on the interpretation of Scripture.

TYPOLOGICAL UNDERSTANDING

Typological understanding of Scripture makes use of the doctrine latent

in the history God has brought to pass. It does so in order to understand
the Bible more comprehensively. It presupposes that there are important
points of analogy between what took place long ago and what takes
place today. These comparable features of disparate times bridge the
centuries. They are enduring. At the same time they repeat themselves
in certain respects. They are, in a word, “typical.” Typological under-
standing also presupposes that God brought about the recording of what
took place long ago in order to furnish later generations with informa-
tion that transcends mere reminiscence. That is, he wished to point the
way for subsequent generations. This quite oversteps the normal bounds
of historical research. It also indicates that such a typological under-
standing can only succeed if the Scripture possesses a “spiritual” sense
along with its literal meaning.
Now the expression “spiritual sense” is not entirely appropriate.
Strictly speaking, historical understanding itself has a “spiritual” sense.
For historical understanding is no less than an activity of the Christian
community under the leading of the Spirit for the purpose of edifying
the community. We speak, therefore, of a distinct “spiritual” sense only
86 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

because this concept has become a fixture in church history and can
hardly be dispensed with at this late date.
A second preliminary observation: typological understanding has
a long history in the church. We saw that it is encountered everywhere
that interpretation does not consciously restrict itself to a sensus liter-
alis. What we describe as “typological” was often called the “sensus
moralis” or “allegoria” in medieval times.
The decisive question, however, is: to what extent does revelation
itself offer such a typological understanding? Without question it does
offer one. The New Testament describes the generation of Israel that
wandered in the desert as virtually our typoi (types, examples; 1Co
10:6). What took place at that time occurred with us in view “so that we
would not desire evil as they did” (1Co 10:6). Looking back at that
occurrence, | Corinthians 10:11 summarizes, “These things happened
to them as examples [typikos] and were written down as warnings for
us, on whom the fulfillment of the ages has come.” The concept typos
and the phenomenon of typological interpretation are already present in
the Scriptures.*? Exegesis must grapple continually with the question of
what the Scriptures mean by “typological” understanding.” In modern
times, however, this has been dealt with primarily as a historical ques-
tion: how did typological understanding function back then? The more
pressing question now, however, is the legitimacy and boundaries of a
contemporary typological understanding.
Decisive here is the knowledge that God’s actions stand in a sal-
vation-historical connection. What takes place today was already pro-
claimed by God (Isa 41:22f.; 43:8f.; 44:7). What took place earlier was
already preparatory for today. God’s actions are teleological in nature.
In God’s word and act lies an intention that already allows for what is
to come. What comes to pass is a key, therefore, to the meaning of the
past. Here the era of the new covenant takes on great importance, first
because it is the time of fulfillment, and second because God had it in
mind from the beginning of his redemptive acts (Eph 1:3ff.; 1Pe 1:12).
From that standpoint we gain access to the statement that God’s deal-
 WAYS OF UNDERSTANDING REVELATION @ 87

ings with the Israelites in the desert contained an announcement to the

community of Jesus Christ, both in word and in deed. This helps us
understand the statement that the Pentateuch was “written down .. . for
us” (1Co 10:11 NIV). Typological interpretation, which sees the Old
Testament from a New Testament viewpoint, is not merely a bygone phe-
nomenon to be explained historically. It is also a possibility and task that
gives those alive today access to revelation.
A question then arises, however, regarding the boundaries of the
typological understanding of Scripture. How far should it be taken? Can
it be constantly and everywhere applied? Is there not a danger, seen
again and again in church history, that uncontrolled exegesis will result?
Is there not even the danger of arriving at an additional source of reve-
lation, one that adds to the clear statements of Scripture?
First of all, this much is certain: an essential feature of typology is
that it presupposes a historical event of another time in all its concrete-
ness and distinctiveness. Typological understanding, then, always adds
to and augments historical understanding. Yet it never replaces it. In this
necessary link with historical understanding lies the first safeguard
against uncontrolled exegesis.
Second, we observe in Scripture itself that typological under-
standing never creates new revelatory data. It only underscores, illus-
trates, and amplifies what has already been stated clearly. In other
words: typological understanding enriches but does not replace a previ-
ous understanding of revelation. It is checked by philological-gram-
matical understanding.
Third, New Testament typology is possible only because of the
new covenant community’s basis in the Christ event. First Corinthians
10, with its relating of the Exodus “rock” to Christ (1Co 10:4), shows
this quite clearly. Jesus Christ is thus the norm of a legitimate typolog-
ical explanation of Scripture. Typological interpretation is
Christological in its focus.
Proceeding from the above three assumptions, a typological inter-
pretation of the entire Old Testament is possible in principle.” The same
88 e@ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

may be said for the historical reports found in the New Testament. It
should, nevertheless, be asked in each individual case whether a given
text does not preclude a typological interpretation, and whether a typo-
logical meaning can be attributed to a passage without contradicting the
passage’s own expressed intent.

ALLEGORICAL UNDERSTANDING

Allegorical understanding of Scripture uses the surface meaning of

words merely as a starting point for unmasking the statement that lies
behind it. This does not mean that the surface meaning is irrelevant.
Indeed, it essentially determines the allegorical understanding insofar
as it furnishes the concrete basis for that understanding and thereby at
the same time its boundaries. Yet for typological interpretation the sur-
face meaning itself is emphatically not what the text “actually” asserts.
The “actual” meaning, the intended statement itself, lies beyond the
words. In a sense the interpreter becomes “apocalyptic” in his outlook,
a hermeneutician who leads the way in uncovering that which would not
have emerged without his activity and thus would have remained unno-
ticed and ineffective.
It is no accident that it is precisely apocalyptic literature that shows
great interest in allegorical understanding. Unlocking and deciphering
hidden meaning is the whole point here. Another outlook that made much
use of allegory was gnosticism. We have already seen that a bitter con-
troversy raged over the legitimacy of allegorical interpretation of Scripture
in Egypt during the third century A.D. The dispute was decided, finally, in
favor of the allegorists. Ticonius and Augustine attempted to steer allegory
along somewhat ordered paths. In the Middle Ages allegorical interpreta-
tion came to mean, in the words of the previously mentioned saying, “what
you should believe.” Without question the allegorical understanding of
Scripture, like the typological, has a long history in the church.
In contrast to typology, allegorical interpretation can be fully inde-
pendent from history. Indeed, the converse can also be affirmed: where
 WAYS OF UNDERSTANDING REVELATION @ 89

interest in actual history recedes, interest in allegory as a rule increases.

This is remarkably confirmed by the theology of the Enlightenment. On
the one hand it sought to do away with typology and allegory in favor
of exclusive attention to philological-historical understanding. On the
other hand it sought to understand Scripture as instruction for true
morality and for that reason lost interest in the historical books of the
Bible. In this connection Aner wrote of a “prevalence of moral concern”
and a “transformation of Christianity into ethics.’ It was precisely
those Old Testament books which dealt with history that Semler rejected
as unnecessary.” So a very high degree of allegorization of the biblical
message took place due to constant attention to highly valued virtues.
If we examine revelation itself for the light it sheds here, we see
that the term allegoroumena appears only in Galatians 4:24. That may
serve as a warning to us. On the other hand, the New Testament does
not exclude the possibility of allegorical understanding. This possibil-
ity enlarges as soon as one moves from the term proper to the thing it
signifies. Then it is most of all the parables of Jesus that play an impor-
tant role. The Gospels report that Jesus gave allegorical interpretations
to some parables (cf. Mt 13:18ff., 36ff.). True, researchers like Joachim
Jeremias have declared such interpretation on Jesus’ part as unhistori-
cal. Jeremias saw in allegory the work of the early church.® This view,
however, is untenable. For Jesus’ procedure corresponds almost pre-
cisely to that which Longenecker has found in use among Jewish scribes
of the first century. Longenecker points here to both “midrashic inter-
pretation” and “allegorical interpretation” David Flusser rightly con-
cludes from his investigation of Jesus’ parables that it is highly probable,
from a historical point of view, that Jesus’ interpretations sometimes
made use of allegory.'® Along with Jesus’ parables, the allegorical ten-
dency of Revelation deserves mention. There, too, one finds the charac-
teristic interpretive formula “that is . . 2” (cf. Rev 1:20; 4:5; 5:6; etc. with
Mt 13:18ff., 36ff.). The whole realm of images, visions, similes,
metaphors, and other figures of speech found in the Bible cries out for
allegorical interpretation. Indeed, such interpretation can be applied
90 e BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

even to names. Along with the example of Galatians 4:24f., one thinks
also of the notable instance found in Hebrews 7:2f.
Yet, to what extent do the parameters and potential of allegorical
understanding suffice for modern interpretation? The question is even
more pressing for allegorical than for typological understanding, since
the tie to history is much looser in the former than in the latter.
As already stated, because allegory does not necessarily presup-
pose a historical event, and because this makes correction by way of his-
torical understanding difficult, allegorical interpretation must proceed
with even more caution than typological. The extent of agreement
between the scope of a given concrete text and an allegorical interpre-
tation of it must be subjected to the greatest and most careful scrutiny.
Here we detect a fine boundary, easily violated but necessary to protect
with great zeal: we do not make use of allegorical interpretation because
we wish to imitate the biblical authors. Rather, we use allegory because,
and insofar as, it is opened to us by the authors and by the revelation they
have enscripturated. We strive, not for imitation (imitatio), but for obe-
dience (oboedientia). For this reason the ingenuity of a Spirit-led bibli-
cal author is not an unconditional standard for application to ourselves.
We do well to exercise far more reserve than they did.
Just as for typology, two presuppositions apply to allegorical
understanding of Scripture as well: #1) It cannot create new revelatory
content. The clear words of Scripture, or of the understanding of
Scripture that philological-grammatical analysis yields, provide a gen-
eral restriction.""' #2) Jesus Christ remains the norm of a legitimate
understanding. I.e., an allegorical interpretation can only be sustained
in a close inner relation to the actual Christ event.

PROPHETIC UNDERSTANDING

Prophetic understanding of Scripture uses the eschatological content of

revelation to understand revelation more fully. It takes the progressive
character of revelation seriously. Just as typology presupposes a salva-
 WAYS OF UNDERSTANDING REVELATION @ 91

tion-historical connection in revelation, the prophetic understanding

presupposes a salvation-historical movement in revelation. And just as
allegorical understanding builds on the premise that God can use words
as Signs pointing to a still-to-be-discovered meaning, prophetic under-
standing assumes fhat God can give words of guidance into an as-yet-
unrealized future.
What distinguishes prophetic understanding from typological and
allegorical? Typology and allegory emphasize the presently given scrip-
tural expression (typology), or the meaning that the expression yields
(allegory). Prophetic understanding attempts to understand what will
happen in and emerge from the future as God sees it. Obviously,
prophetic understanding is closely related to the other ways of under-
standing revelation. It may very well be the case that one and the same
biblical text will be interpreted the same way typologically (or allegor-
ically) and prophetically. Yet for two reasons it is advisable to accord
prophetic interpretation a place of its own. First, the Bible’s eschato-
logical dimension is of special importance. Second, the prophetic under-
standing has played an independent role in the history of interpretation.
In the context of ancient Judaism, the prophetic understanding is
similar to the pesher method observable in apocalyptic prophecy'” and
in some of the Qumran material.'* In the Middle Ages the anagogia
(higher sense) was said to indicate quid speres (what hope should be
placed in). Many Christian interpreters stressed the essential prophetic
understanding most of all when it came to interpreting Revelation.'
Within biblical revelation two forms of prophetic meaning are dis-
cernible. We may call them the presentistic and futuristic forms. The
presentistic form consists in this contemporary characterization: “This
is that.’ Thus Jesus says in the synagogue, “Today this scripture is ful-
filled in your hearing” (Lk 4:21 NIV). He refers to Isaiah 61:1f. Jesus and
his hearers are agreed that historically speaking Jesus’ text deals with
“the prophet Isaiah” (Lk 4:17). They are also not discussing which typo-
logical or allegorical meaning can be derived from the Isaiah passage.
Of fundamental interest is the prophetic understanding, similar to
92 e BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

Jewish pesher, that is announced here. Jesus states that he is the one of
whom Isaiah spoke in his very different place and time. That is the pres-
entistic or contemporary form of prophetic interpretation.
We also encounter a second form, the futuristic. Again we can dis-
cover it in the Jesus tradition, this time as he discusses Psalm 110:1 (Mt
22:41ff.). There David spoke “in the Spirit” (NASB). So far Jesus and his
discussion partners are in agreement. “In the Spirit” likely means under
prophetic illumination. The matter at issue in Jesus’ time, then, is the
prophetic understanding of what David described. Who is it that David
calls “my Lord” in Psalm 110:1? Jesus’ indirect answer runs: it must be
more than the son of David; otherwise the father would not, against
social convention, have named the son “my Lord.” Jesus’ concern is with
this “more,” which is in point of fact the Son of God. Yet it is the Son of
God whose enemies are a footstool for his feet. And that is not the pres-
ent Son who came in earthly weakness but rather the future Son, the Son
of God who will return in divine might.
Prophetic understanding uncovers the identity of the person named
in Psalm 110:1. But that person is one yet to come. Therefore we speak
here of a future form of prophetic meaning.
In what way can prophetic understanding take place today?
Although “prophetic” interpretation is far more often used in practical
settings than it might seem, the answer to this question is by no means
easy to supply. And for this reason: it is precisely in the realm of
prophetic interpretation that truth and falsehood mingle in highest mea-
sure, without there at first sight being criteria for discovering what is
true.
The first rule must be to distinguish between the presentistic and
futuristic forms, just as we do in looking at revelation itself, some of
which clearly applies to its own time and some of which has more
extended or universal application.
The second rule must be that in contemporary prophetic interpre-
tation (“This is that”) the utmost reserve is to be exercised. That is, the
justification of the interpretation must ultimately remain open. For we
 WAYS OF UNDERSTANDING REVELATION @ 93

do not possess that infallibility of interpretation that the New Testament

has in relation to the Old. A constantly recurring error in the history of
interpretation is to want to make contemporary prophetic statements
without trusting in God’s decision. In this respect Bengel is exemplary.
He reckoned with “major failure” in his “system” and called for testing
of his interpretations.'’* Since Bengel’s time we have learned especially
from how the book of Revelation has been handled not to favor facile
identifications of what Revelation says with world historical develop-
ments, but rather to pay attention first to the “essential structure” that
comes to expression in the prophecy contained in Revelation.'
A third rule is that prophetic understanding of Scripture also does
not lead to new revelation that transcends Scripture’s own clear and suf-
ficient words. The futuristic form of prophetic understanding is espe-
cially exposed to this danger. A contemporary interpretation can go
wrong without in any way affecting the revelation of Scripture that lies
in clear view. It actualizes only the word that seems to apply to the pres-
ent situation. Futuristic interpretation, however, concretizes and unfolds
what will allegedly take place in the future. Because the implicit claim
here is that the meaning of God’s word is being “discovered,” that for
the first time its content is being clarified, the boundary leading to a
claim of new revelation is quickly crossed. For this reason, futuristic
interpretation must be securely bound to the content of Scripture as a
whole as this is opened up through other means of understanding.
A fourth rule involves respect for the order that 1 Corinthians 14
establishes for Christian worship. The interpreter bears responsibility
for the prophetic understanding he proffers, not the Holy Spirit as if he
were directly present. “The spirits of the prophets are subject to the
prophets” (1Co 14:32 KJV). That means that the interpreter cannot sim-
ply equate his words with the Holy Spirit’s, as if the latter had irresistibly
implanted this or that statement. He must rather take personal respon-
sibility for his claims, representing his interpretation in the context of
the entire community, allowing it to be corrected as need be (cf. 1Co
14:29). For that reason an understanding that comes to us as “prophetic”
94 e BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

can also never be binding. It can only be confirmed through revelation,

thereby being commended to revelation-bound faith (cf. Dt 13:2ff.;
18:20ff.).
Nevertheless, we cannot dispense with prophetic understanding of
Scripture. Both in preaching and in biblical instruction it occasionally
must occupy our attention. It is necessary in the midst of the struggle
that the Christian community faces in every age, and most of all under
end-time conditions. If we relegate it to the no-man’s-land of unreflected
practice, or leave it to be exercised only by groups we consider to be
heretical, then the risk that inheres in this method of understanding will
become uncontrollable and outweigh its benefits.

RECIPROCAL RELATIONSHIP OF THE VARIOUS

WAYS OF UNDERSTANDING

At the close of this chapter the question arises: what is the relationship
of the various means of understanding to each other?
We have discussed a few of the ways they relate. But only a few: a
presentation of the ways of understanding can never be complete, if for
no other reason than because new ways are constantly being pondered,
and often tried out, in the course of the church’s history.
Let us cling to the conviction that historical, dogmatic, typologi-
cal, allegorical, and prophetic understanding all without exception offer
cognitive possibilities for understanding. That is also to say that they
require supplementation, i.e., must be augmented with the help of
dynamic and ethical understanding.
Overall it may be said that no individual possibility of under-
standing may be absolutized. Rather, all are only concrete expressions
of discipleship. We recall the apt words of Hans Schlaffer: ‘‘a disciple
of Christ—that’s who a Christian is.” To be Christ’s disciple means to
lead a renewed existence in faith. Understanding at various levels
belongs to this renewed existence. If these dimensions of discipleship
 WAYS OF UNDERSTANDING REVELATION @ 95

are detached from each other, the individual parts grow abstract, mere
L’art pour l’art, and die. ‘
But it is not only one’s personal existence in faith that demands a
unity and comprehensiveness of understanding. The integrity of the
faith at the community level is also at stake. All the possibilities of
understanding described above are, indeed, activities within one and the
same community. Their goal is its building up in the best sense. As the
individual members of the community make up the whole body, the var-
ious ways of understanding are functions of the one body. That is why
we must reject a division between “theology for the church” and “the-
ology for the university.” A university theology that at the same time has
no desire to be theology for the church is in the strict sense no longer
theology at all. And a church theology that has no desire to articulate its
convictions in the university sphere is in the strict sense no longer a the-
ology that will serve the church.
The end that must be striven for, then, is a sound development and
tight consolidation of all the possible means of understanding that rev-
elation opens up to us.'®
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 : . CHAPTER SEVEN

The Inspiration of
Scripture

A DEAD ISSUE?

When it came time for Karl Girgensohn to publish his essay “The
Inspiration of Holy Scripture,” he wrote: “When the topic of inspiration
is broached, people appear to treat it as a dead issue.”!
When did inspiration come to be regarded as “a dead issue’?
Certainly since the time of W. Hermann’s and J. Kaftan’s protest against
a renewal of the doctrine of inspiration. They argued that “‘the notion of
an inspired Scripture actually [would complicate] the knowledge of rev-
elation as well as obedience to it.” Gennrich called this a “radical break”
with the traditional doctrine of inspiration.” But for the majority of theo-
logians on the Continent, the doctrine of inspiration had become a “dead
issue” much earlier, as early in fact as the end of the Enlightenment. O.
Merk and G. Hornig concur in their judgment: “At no point in dogmat-
ics” did “the historical-critical theology of the 18th century
Enlightenment break so radically with orthodox traditions as in the area
of the doctrine of inspiration,”
98 e BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

We can readily trace the progress of the collapse of the doctrine of

Scripture and, as a result, the doctrine of inspiration.
Jean Alphonse Turretin of Geneva (1671-1737) dissociated him-
self from the notion of Scripture being “God-breathed” (8EdmvEvVOTOO;
cf. 2Ti 3:16).* Johann Salomo Semler completely gave up the doctrine
of inspiration.’ Gotthold Ephraim Lessing had anticipated Semler in
denying the inspiration of Scripture. Soon the only tenable views main-
tained inspiration of Scripture’s content, or of the person, as opposed to
verbal inspiration; Schleiermacher exemplifies belief in personal inspi-
ration.’ Friedrich Wilhelm Jerusalem (1709-89) reads Moses with the
same eyes as he reads Homer, Virgil, or Plato.’ Rationalism turned
against every conception of inspiration that infringed on human auton-
omy (an example here would be Wegscheider).° Even relatively conser-
vative theologians like Tholuck or Rothe come out against verbal
inspiration."°
A. Tholuck spoke of the “necessity of a freer conception of inspi-
ration.” This suggested itself as a necessity for him because Scripture
was inerrant only “in the essentials’’" R. Rothe distinguished between
revelation and Scripture. Only the former was inspired; in the latter he
saw mistakes and errors.'? Fr. H. R. Frank argued in similar fashion."
When changes in the traditional doctrine of inspiration were criticized
in the Baltic churches, Theodosius Harnack replied, ““We don’t believe
in a book but in Jesus Christ.'*... The preached word is the actual means
of grace; the written word serves only [!] as plumbline and norm,’ O.
Zockler saw no room for verbal inspiration in the state church: “The ulti-
mate consequence of a full doctrine of verbal inspiration would be a free
church system’; no theologians would be forthcoming “from the teach-
ing institutions of the state church” who held such a view.'® The
Herrnhuter seminary in Gnadenfeld was expressively permitted to adopt
modern-critical views according to a ruling of the Herrnhuter synod of
1897; the unity of “faith in the inmost heart” would be sufficient.”
Theologians like Kohler (Erlangen), Ottli, or Sellin strove for a “posi-
tive criticism,” forsaking the traditional doctrine of inspiration, because
 THE INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE @ 99

they were convinced that (“negative”) criticism could only be refuted by

(“positive’’) criticism.'* For court preacher Stocker in Berlin the doctrine
of verbal inspiration was “a grave error?”
This was the situation in Germany in 1900. We have canvassed the
views of conservative theologians because they furnish the best evi-
dence for what developed. As far as liberal theology is concerned,
William Wrede could state concisely and colorfully in 1897: “Science
has recognized the old doctrine of inspiration to be untenable.””’ His
main argument runs: “inspired” and “historical” are irreconcilable oppo-
sites.?' It speaks for the honesty of the liberal standpoint when Wrede
rejected all “one-quarter and three-quarter doctrines of inspiration” as
unsatisfactory compromises.”
The dissolution of the doctrine of inspiration in Germany triggered
great theological battles in America at the turn of the century. The out-
come there was also similar. An example is the so-called Chicago
school headed up by W. R. Harper.”
From the turn of the century to today, two characteristics dominate.
First, for the majority of Continental and perhaps also many Anglo-
Saxon theologians, there is no longer any battle over inspiration. Second,
the doctrine of inspiration seems to be irretrievably lost. The same view
is shared by many Catholic voices.” It will suffice to cite a few—pri-
marily “conservative” —examples. Heinrich Frick, who inclined to the
pneumatic exegesis of the 1920s, opined in 1927: “Whoever takes part
in theological learning even to the slightest extent can no longer argue
for a naive trust in the verbal infallibility of the Bible’’> That is, the
stance toward biblical inspiration is decided by “theological learning.”
Whoever possesses it no longer maintains “‘a naive trust” in the Bible.
W. Elert placed the following heading over a paragraph in his book on
the Christian faith: “Inadequacy of the doctrine of inspiration.” He
called the Christian and Protestant Scholastic “dictation theory” a
“theresy:’?° W. Joest in 1966 went even further. He explained the histor-
ical-critical solution to the doctrine of inspiration as simply “a correc-
tion made by God himself to our theological notions.”” Thus the
100 e BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

conviction of Scripture’s inspiration, widely accepted for many cen-

turies, is given up as ungodly and heretical. In its wake the modern critic
becomes God’s spokesman. Erich Dinkler, a Bultmannian following in
the steps of Bultmann’s teacher Wrede, argued in 1950 that the earlier
doctrine of inspiration must give way in the light of historical-critical
research: “there can be no talk of inspiration’’* “Historical” and
“inspired” are mutually exclusive. Popular presentations infer from all
this “that the Bible as a witness to its divine origin collapsed under the
cross-examination to which historical-critical research subjected it.”
Somewhat more cautiously Finlayson (1959) speaks of a “displacement
of the authority of Scripture by that of human experience and enlight-
enment.”*°
This background must be kept in mind when seeking to outline a
doctrine of inspiration today. But there is another dimension to consider.
For broad segments of the church have not gone along with the devel-
opments sketched above regarding conceptions of inspiration. In the
German-speaking context this is true above all for believers at the local
level. Gennrich’s monograph (1898) expressly described how university
theology continually referred to the injuries it had inflicted on the tra-
ditional approach to the question of inspiration; “the division between
theology and the faith of common believers” became “greater and
greater’”*' As recently as 1981, assembled members of the influential
Gnadauer Federation” approved this formulation: “We believe and con-
fess that the entire Bible is God’s word, produced and permeated by the
Holy Spirit and therefore unconditionally true and trustworthy: True,
technical terms are avoided in their statement. But the tendency to hold
fast to the inspiration of the “entire Bible” is clear. Individual Protestant
theologians like L. Gaussen or F. A. Philippi fought for verbal inspira-
tion even during the nineteenth century.** Even where verbal inspiration
was rejected, there is some acknowledgment that the orthodox evangel-
ical doctrine of inspiration was a legitimate continuation of what the
Reformers believed.** On the evangelical side, scholarly fundamental-
ism has continued to defend the verbal inspiration of Scripture right up
 THE INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE @ 101

to the present hour: among others one thinks of Geisler, Henry,

Mickelsen, Packer, Ramm, and Warfield. Finally, it should be noted that
official Catholic doctrine continues to affirm both the inerrancy of
Scripture and its inspiration. The papal encyclical on the timely fur-
therance of biblical studies of September 30, 1943, begins with the
words: “Divino afflante Spiritu, illos Sacri Sciptores exararunt libros”
(“Prompted by the Holy Spirit, holy authors wrote those books”’).** Here
we encounter concepts like “verbum divinitus inspiratum” (divinely
inspired word), “divina inspiratio” (divine inspiration), “exceptum
errore” (without error), and “ab omni errore immunis” (immune from
all error).” Somewhat more reserved, then, is the instruction of the papal
Bible commission of April 21, 1964, which appears to move in the
direction of personal inspiration.** Yet one reads again and again that
inspiration “preserved” the writers of the Gospels “from all error” (ob
omni errore praeservabat).*°
If, in addition to the above, one considers the careful attempts, also
from the evangelical side, to make renewed connections with the bibli-
cal statements about inspiration,” then it is hardly possible to declare the
doctrine of inspiration a “dead issue.”*!
It could not possibly be a “dead issue” anyway, however, because
it is based on statements that are revealed, that are not to be obliterated,
and that place before every generation the task of a renewed and bibli-
cal doctrine of inspiration.
It is now time for us carefully to test the arguments that were pon-
dered in the centuries-long disputes over the inspiration of the Bible.
Even and especially here, however, we observe the starting point estab-
lished earlier: we proceed from revelation itself.

THE ANSWER OF REVELATION

Strangely enough, the question whether the writings of the old covenant
are inspired is easier to answer than the question concerning the inspi-
ration of the New Testament.
102 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

Second Timothy 3:16 declares, “All Scripture is Be6mvEevoTOO.””

The translation “All Scripture is given by God” is superior to the more
restrictive translation “All Scripture that is given by God... 2“
“Scripture” here denotes what we call the Old Testament. It has the qual-
ity of a “Holy Writing.” As a result, Paul can use the term “Holy
Writings” (Ro 1:2). They are “holy;’ however, in the sense that here “the
words of God” lie before us (Ro 3:2).
Our first result is this: in the NT the entire “Old Testament” as it
existed at that time—its precise compass is not our concern at this
point—is viewed as “given by God.” This result is also widely acknowl-
edged among exegetes.
The question arises, however, whether this “given by God” or
“inspired” receives a more precise definition. With this question in mind
we turn first to another locus classicus,** 2 Peter 1:21. There we read:
“men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit”
(NIV). The content of this statement can be summarized in three steps.
#1) “Men spoke”; that is, representatives of “normal” persons at a par-
ticular place and time, not “instruments,” “writing implements,” or the
like; and they used a “normal” human language, not glossalalia, ecstatic
sounds, or some similar means. #2) None of them, curiously enough,
spoke from the standpoint of men, but “from God”; that is, sent from
him, empowered, proceeding from his vantage point and bringing across
a message from him that is no less than a “divine” message. #3) The one
who brought about this peculiar state of affairs is the “Holy Spirit’ He
“carried” them, that is “compelled,” “moved,” “led,” “directed,”
“steered.” These basic determinations form the core of any doctrine of
inspiration that can be called biblical.
Thus far we have left the written form of the “Old Testament” out
of consideration. The Old Testament, however, contains unambiguous
statements that must be weighed. The testament of Moses seeks to
exclude every alteration of his teaching: “Do not add to what Icommand
you and do not subtract from it. . ’? (Dt 4:2 NIV; cf. 12:32; Pr 30:6). From
Revelation 22:18f. the inference can be drawn that such unalterability
 THE INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE ® 103

was accorded precisely to Scripture’s written form* in New Testament

times at the latest. This is confirmed through Jesus’ statement in John
10:35: “The Scripture cannot be broken?” It is precisely the written
Torah that Joshua is told to heed carefully (Jos 1:8). Psalm 119 (vv. 6,
18, etc.) likewise presupposes the written form. The prophets are also
supposed to support the permanence and lasting quality of their mes-
sage through writing (Isa 8:16; Jer 36; Da 12:4). On the other hand, the
prophets proceed from the conviction that Torah is extant in written form
(Hos 8:12; Mic 6:8; Mal 4:4), and they themselves refer back to written
materials of earlier prophets (Da 9:2). Here we should also mention
numerous passages that presuppose a revelation in written form and
address the adherence to or rejection of these passages in the history of
Israel—e.g., Joshua 8:31ff.; 1 Samuel 10:25; 1 Kings 2:3; 2 Kings 14:6;
18:4ff.; 23:2, 21; 1 Chronicles 16:40; 28:11, 19; 2 Chronicles 17:3ff.*8
All in all, revelation in written form regards itself as #1) unalterable and
#2) absolute. The deepest reason for this is that God himself is the ulti-
mate origin of these utterances. Therefore God himself is essentially
the writer (Ex 24:12; 31:18; 32:15f.). Therefore we encounter the for-
mula “the scripture says,’ which is interchangeable with the formula
“God says; cf. Mt 22:31f.; 1Co 15:3f.; Gal 3:87
This knowledge serves to lead to the further knowledge that it is
the Holy Spirit who created that writing of revelation.®' Moses is
regarded as bearing the Spirit (Nu 11:17, 25; Dt 18:15ff.), as are the
prophets.*? David, too, knows that “the Spirit of the LORD spoke through
me” (2Sa 23:2 NIV). The NT recognizes this about David, who as pars
pro toto (part for the whole) represents the entire book of Psalms (Lk
24:44; Mt 22:43; Ac 1:16; Heb 1:7; 3:7), just as it recognizes the
prophets (Mt 1:22; Lk 24:44; Ac 28:25; 1Pe 1:11; 2Pe 1:21; Heb 10:15)
and the Torah (Heb 9:8; 2Ti 3:16).
This goes along, once more, with the fact that the human authors
of the so-called Old Testament recede into the background. It is “the
Lord who spoke through the prophets” (Mt 1:22; cf. other Old Testament
citations in Matthew). It is “Scripture” that “says” something (Gal 3:8).
104 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

It is “the Scriptures” that proclaim something (1Co 15:3f.). And it is also

the “Scripture” itself and not only a chosen proclaimer that is filled with
and formed by the Spirit (2Ti 3:16).
It remains to be noted that in the presentation above we are in
agreement with Jewish interpreters known to us from the first century
A.D. As Longenecker says, they were all convinced of the “divine inspi-
ration of the Scriptures” and that the Scriptures were “the very words of
God” (cf. Ro 3:2).
But what about the New Testament? The question is difficult to
answer because for Christians there is no authoritative Koran to confirm
definitively the authority of the New Testament. Rather, God’s revela-
tion reached its final conclusion in the time of Jesus (Heb 1:1f.).
Furthermore, the New Testament contains no binding list or definition
of its own dimensions.
In this situation the only option is to proceed inductively in keep-
ing with the procedure we have established above. That is, we must hear
the claims of the individual writings of the New Testament, and only
then press on to an assessment of the New Testament in its entirety.
With the book of Revelation there can be little question. By the
statement in 22:18f. it places itself on the same level of binding norma-
tivity as the Mosaic Torah (Dt 4:2). It sees itself from the outset, then,
as “Holy Scripture.” The opening chapters serve only to support this
claim (cf. Rev 1:1, 108; 2:1, 12,:etc.).™
Moreover, 2 Peter 3:15f. shows that already in New Testament
times there was a Pauline corpus, the extent of which we can admittedly
no longer be certain. As to the character of this collection of Pauline
writings (“all his letters,’ 2Pe 3:16), we can infer the following from
Peter’s statement: #1) Paul’s letters consist of a number of letters. #2)
Paul composed these letters under the direction of God-given wisdom
(“the wisdom that God gave him,” v. 15 NIV). #3) These Pauline utter-
ances are cited as if they were Holy Scripture (ef. v. 15, “just as .. . Paul
also wrote” [NIV] and e.g., Ro 3:4, “As it is written . . 2’). #4) The Pauline
writings are placed on the same level as “the other Scriptures” (v. 16).
 THE INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE @ 105

It can be said, then, that a collection of Pauline letters was viewed as

Holy Scripture as early as the time of the writing of Peter’s second
epistle.
When one scrutinizes Paul’s letters with this in mind, one encoun-
ters Paul’s Claim to’ be writing under the leadership of the Holy Spirit
(1Co 7:40; 14:37; 2Co 3:5ff.; 4:13). Paul expressly described his oral
proclamation “not as the word of men, but as it actually is, the word of
God” (1Th 2:13 NIV). He is “taught by the Holy Spirit” (1Co 12:13; cf.
Gal 1:8, 11). That which he preaches was “revealed by the Spirit” (1Co
2:10).°> The internal witness of Paul’s letters agrees, then, with the exter-
nal testimony of 2 Peter. That gives us the right to regard the Pauline let-
ters in the New Testament as “Holy Scripture,’ in keeping with the New
Testament’s own statements.
At first glance the situation appears less clear in the case of the
Gospels. For example, the Lucan prologue (Lk 1:1—4) can be regarded
as a historical outline.** Luke alludes to his role as author but says noth-
ing about the Spirit.
More careful study, however, modifies this first impression. Let us
start with the gospel of John. It contains a key phrase that describes the
eyewitness and author of the report (cf. Jn 21:24 and 19:35) as some-
one whose “testimony is true” (Jn 21:24). True is a term that encom-
passes various dimensions: #1) subjectively “true” = convincing; #2)
objectively “true” = reliable, true to the facts; #3) in agreement with
God’s will, just as God’s Word and his incarnation in Jesus are “truth”
(cf. Jn 14:6; 17:17). In this way the entire gospel is legitimated as stand-
ing in agreement with God. To this corresponds Jesus’ repeated
prophecy that his disciples, one of whom is the author of the fourth
gospel, will be led by the Spirit (Jn 14:26; 16:13). Finally, it is striking
that the opening of John’s gospel, in part right down to the very word-
ing, runs parallel to Genesis 1. This can really only be interpreted as an
implicit claim that John’s gospel stands on the same level of legitimacy
and authority as the Holy Scriptures of Israel.”
If we return now to Luke’s two treatises (Luke-Acts), a few key
106 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

emphases of the Lucan prologue grab our attention. So far there is no

unanimity over the precise meaning of kathexes (in order; Lk 1:3).°* But
there is broad consensus that for Luke “assured reliability” (asphaleia;
Lk 1:4) is a central concern.® Du Plessis defines asphaleia as “certainty
or reliability” whose aim is “the historically verified and theologically
reflected truth.’ This understanding of asphaleia is supported from two
sides. First is the accompanying word akribos (precisely, carefully; Lk
1:3). Second is a word that appears in Luke 1:1, diegesin (narrative,
account). Parallels in Josephus (Jewish War I, \ff.) indicate that the word
refers to a well-attested and solidly grounded report.*' If Luke thereby
emphasizes the “truth” of the report in the sense of its “reliability” (cf.
Jn 21:24)—explicitly stated with mention of eyewitnesses and tradition
in Luke 1:2—then a second element comes to light when he alludes to
the “servants of the word” (Lk 1:2). When Luke bases his writing on
these persons, he consciously highlights a subset among the eyewit-
nesses in order to introduce a new criterion. What is the nature of this
criterion? “Eyewitnesses” and “servants of the word” are first of all
apostles, according to Acts 6:2—4. More precisely, this refers to the
Twelve. And it is precisely to these that Jesus’ promise in Luke 10: 16f.
applies: “The one who hears you, hears me.’ They are the ones who
received the Spirit in keeping with Jesus’ promise (Lk 24:48ff.; Ac 2).
When Luke, therefore, refers to the “servants of the word” in the pro-
logue of his two treatises, he is basing his writing on those who bore the
Spirit. When he at the same time emphasizes “reliability,” he is not only
laying claim to historical veracity; he is also implying that he serves as
an extension, so to speak, of the Spirit-led apostles and founders of the
earliest church. If all this does not amount to a direct claim to be pro-
ducing “Holy Scripture,” it comes very close. Luke’s writings leave it up
to the Spirit-led judgment of the early Christian community (cf. Ac 2),
one might say, whether to regard those writings as Holy Scripture.
With respect to Matthew’s gospel, the carefully crafted beginning
section, containing literal resemblance to Genesis 5:1, likewise shows
an intention to continue the Holy Scriptures of Israel. Matthew 1:17
 THE INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE @ 107

emphasizes this continuity with its claim that the (sevenfold: compare
Rev 1:4; 3:1; 4:5; 5:6 with Zec 4:2, 10) Spirit of God has determined
the history of Israel and of the nations up to the time of Christ. This
story of God’s work must, in keeping with the history of the old
covenant, be chronicled. From Christ come Spirit-filled “prophets and
wise men and teachers” (Mt 23:34 NIV; cf. 3:11; 28:19) who can do this.
Indirectly, therefore, Matthew also lays claim to be writing Holy
Scripture.
For Mark there is as little as nothing to be said. Perhaps it would
be otherwise if we still possessed the original ending to that gospel.
In discussing the inspiration of the Gospels, however, there
remains one important argument that we have not yet taken into account.
I refer to the manner in which other parts of the New Testament treat
the material found in the Gospels. How does the handling of Gospel tra-
dition (which predates the New Testament epistles) show those epistles’
special regard for that tradition? First, 1 Corinthians 7: 10ff. suggests that
a collection of Jesus’ sayings existed which Paul placed on the same
level of authority as the Holy Scripture of Israel. The Pauline epistle that
is likely the oldest confirms this (1Th 4:15ff.). If one sifts through Peter’s
first letter in search of the Jesus traditions it contains, similar observa-
tions can be made. Without question, 1 Timothy 5:18 quotes a saying of
Jesus (Lk 10:7; Mt 10:10) as “Scripture” and places it on the same level
with the Torah (Dt 25:4). We can even go a step farther: John’s gospel
handles Jesus’ words in just the same way as Old Testament statements
that must be fulfilled (cf. Jn 18:9, 32). All these observations combine
to support the conclusion that the words of the eschatological, Spirit-
filled Messiah possess the same worth as the “Holy Scriptures” of the
old covenant. That has considerable significance for a proper concep-
tion of the inspiration of the Gospels.
Let us expand our search to include the Johannine Epistles. The
author of 1 John introduces himself as an eyewitness and empowered
herald (1Jn 1:1-4). The central formula of 3 John, “you know that our
testimony is true” (3Jn 12 NIV) is highly reminiscent of John 21:24. The
108 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

author of all three epistles, who is obviously one and the same person,
speaks with the certainty that he is anointed with the Holy Spirit (1Jn
2:20; 4:1ff.; 5:6). The Johannine Epistles are, therefore, likewise
inspired according to their own self-testimony.
To summarize the results of the preceding: by far most of the writ-
ings of the New Testament are inspired based on the statements they
make about themselves (Revelation, Paul’s letters, John’s letters, Jesus’
words). In other cases indirect claims justify the inference that the writ-
ings are inspired (the gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke; Acts). Only
a few letters say nothing along these lines (Petrine letters, James, Jude,
Hebrews). With the exception of Hebrews, however, even these may be
viewed as the writings of eyewitnesses and authorized (i.e., Spirit-led)
teachers of the earliest Christian fellowships.®
When the church later acknowledged the inspiration of all New
Testament writings on the basis of the testimonium spiritus sancti inter-
num (internal testimony of the Holy Spirit), it was taking its stand on
firm historical ground. Moreover, its claim was in harmony with the
claims of revelation itself.
The question can, then, by no means be whether the writings of
the New Testament are inspired, according to revelation (i.e., Scripture)
itself. The question can rather only be what we mean when we describe
them as “inspired.”
In what follows we will attempt to lay out the basic pattern that the
Bible gives us.

THE RANGE OF REVELATION

We proceed here with two comments in mind. One comes from Alan M.
Stibbs (and not only from him) and asserts that in investigating revela-
tion we have to guard ourselves against overly detailed questions.“ That
is doubtless a necessary reminder! The other remark is by Albert C.
Sundberg: “that the Bible is inspired . . . is a universal Christian doc-
trine’’® The second statement is no less important than the first.
 THE INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE @ 109

1. PERSONAL INSPIRATION

The prevailing critical tendency is to treat inspiration, if it recognizes it

at all, as personal inspiration. That is, by inspiration it understands—to
use W. Schmidt’s formulation—“the subjective transmission of revela-
tion to the holy writer’ or “God’s breathing of himself into the inmost
reaches of the person.”** Richard Rothe stated it even more briefly when
he spoke of the “inspiration of the writers,’ not of the Scripture.” Today
one occasionally hears of the “empowering” of the biblical authors “for
witness.’** This conception of personal inspiration has won ground since
Schleiermacher.®
The advantage of such a solution is obvious and was already
described by Schleiermacher himself. If inspiration does not extend to
revelation as expressed in Scripture but only to the writer who was active
in producing it, then “all individual features can be handled as purely
human.” Then criticism possesses free reign over the word of revela-
tion. E.g., Schleiermacher could thereby deny the inspiration of the Old
Testament.” Rothe came to the conclusion that “there can be no talk of
an infallibility and absolute inerrancy of the Scripture’’” Similar state-
ments can be found in H. E. Weber.” W. Abraham draws parallels to a
human teacher who “inspires” his pupils and suggests that, since along
with the teacher there are other influences, the pupils will obviously
make mistakes.”
In critiquing this view its partial truth should be acknowledged.
There can, in fact, be no doubt that biblical statements on inspiration
emphasize that the writers are Spirit-filled.* Nor can it be doubted that
the early church, Protestant Scholasticism,” Catholic doctrine, and both
pietistic and fundamentalist writers teach personal inspiration—though
that is not the full extent of what they teach. To take a few examples:
according to Justin God “moves” (kinein) the writers; the Spirit breathes
on them (empnein).” For Origen the Holy Scriptures were “written down
as the result of what the Holy Spirit breathed out (ex epipnoias).””
Flacius emphasizes the inspiration of the authors in speaking of their
110 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

“empowerment.” Johann Tobias Beck came up with a similar formu-

lation: “In the Scripture holy men of God speak and write due to the
impetus and input of the Holy Spirit. They are taught by him internally
and led into the truth’”° The “Instructio” of the 1964 papal Bible com-
mission speaks of the “spirits” of the authors which were “led and
guided” as the authors “composed” their works.*!
However—and here we turn to criticism of another side of the mat-
ter—this doctrine of personal inspiration remained, until the
Enlightenment, linked with the doctrine of verbal inspiration. For
Protestant Scholasticism Preus concludes that verbal inspiration was
explicated first, and after that personal inspiration. The point at issue,
then, is not whether personal inspiration is a tenable view. For this is
really a settled question. The disputed point is rather whether personal
inspiration is the only sense in which inspiration affects the Bible’s
writings.
Additional critical consideration is in order regarding the modern
shaping of the doctrine of personal inspiration, which represents a theo-
logical setback in the face of the Enlightenment’s triumphal march.
Gennrich describes the matter thus: “Finally it was enough to say noth-
ing beyond the bare fact that the writers were illumined; or to be con-
tent with affirming the writer’s piety (which as proclaimers of divine
truth was certainly suitable for them anyway). The divine element of
inspiration came to be viewed as simply that which reason already rec-
ognized as true and good.” At that rate a special doctrine of inspiration
became quite unnecessary.” Here we glimpse the danger that a truly bib-
lical doctrine of inspiration must avoid by all means: loss of assurance
regarding the God-givenness of the content of the Bible.
This danger is clearly exemplified in Shailer Mathews, a leading
theologian of the Chicago school. He believed “in the inspiration of
men, not words.” As a result the Bible appeared to him as “‘a trustwor-
thy record of the human experience of God.”* This conclusion is nearly
paradoxical, if also understandable: the human is deemed reliable, while
the divine falls prey to doubt. The humanly subjective triumphs over the
 THE INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE @ 111

divinely objective. As we saw earlier, this form of theory runs counter

to what revelation intends to be.
Precisely at this point we must return once more to Paul Ricoeur.
For Ricoeur the “manifestation of the absolute” is found in the biblical
testimony. ‘Without such manifestation, our interpretation would “for-
ever be only an interpretation of an interpretation’’** We require “the
objective dimension of revelation,’*’ From there Ricoeur succeeds in
locating the locus of revelation: it lies “between the secret and the
revealed’”** Here, now, we glimpse the crux of the matter. The purpose
of inspiration is to vouchsafe the reliability of statements that come from
God (2Pe 2:21) and to assure that they endure for the future (cf. Isa 40:8;
Mt 5:18; 24:35). An inspiration that extends only to the concrete per-
son and not to the message permits the message to sink into oblivion.
The “absolute” would then have disappeared.

2. INSPIRATION OF IDEAS

Like the notion of purely personal inspiration, the view that just the
ideas (not the actual words) of Scripture are inspired represents a dog-
matic retreat in the face of the Enlightenment’s forward march.
According to Gennrich, “people now began to distinguish between
words and ideas and to ascribe divine prompting only to the latter. And
they went even farther: they restricted inspiration to the religious con-
tent of the Bible, excluding other material, which they deemed to be
purely human.”*’ This restriction to certain kinds of statements offered
the same advantage as the doctrine that inspiration was purely personal
in nature—namely, it made room for criticism of the Bible’s content
(Sachkritik). It also offered an additional advantage of permitting a basic
endorsement of Scripture’s inspiration to continue. Inspiration of the
Bible’s ideas is a view partially in evidence in late Protestant
Scholasticism. Calixt would be an example here, for whom it would
have dishonored the Holy Spirit to reveal that which was nonessential
(“leviculae’’).’* Similar ideas are present yet earlier among Catholic
112 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

authors such as Franz Suarex.*? With Musaeus we then encounter the

more sharply defined concept that the “contents” of Scripture are
inspired.” Ernesti (1707-81) evinces for the first time the formulation
that became typical for subsequent thought. His work combines criti-
cism of content (Sachkritik) with the idea of divine inspiration. But in
that case we are dealing here with nothing other than a view that
Scripture’s contents (not its words) are inspired.°!
It is tempting to try to trace how this view branched out. We would
see, among other things, that personal inspiration and idea inspiration
are compatible and can crop up alongside each other. But what is impor-
tant here is to work out the considerable inner tension inherent in the
view that inspiration involves primarily only the Bible’s ideas. This ten-
sion almost inevitably results in a view of partial inspiration. Ernst
Bloch saw the tendency to sunder unities as a primordial human phe-
nomenon: “Man’s darkness and confusion find a correlate in his dis-
unification.” It appears that man tends to project this indwelling
disunification onto that which ought to put it to flight—revelation. Let
us clarify this phenomenon by looking at an example. Both
Schleiermacher and Rothe distinguish between (inspired) revelation and
(noninspired) Scripture. For Rothe this resulted in the task of separating
out “that which is appropriate to revelation” in the Bible. Only this is
inspired and has unconditional authority.°? Both basically arrive at the
result that only certain parts of the Bible, which it is theology’s job to
determine, are inspired. For Marheinecke inspiration grants protection
only “from errors in the substantial truths of the Christian faith.’
Tholuck speaks in similar terms: only “in that which is essential” is the
Bible without error and inspired.*> Nor does J. S. Lutz think that all in
the Bible is divinely given. Only soteriological material is ““God’s word,”
not “historical data, depictions of customs and morals, comments on
insignificant persons.” The “historical calls for critical investigation.”
The dogmatic implications of an approach to inspiration centering on
ideas (as opposed to words, the actual text in its fullness) becomes espe-
cially clear in the work of W. F. Gess (1819-91). Passages like Judges
 THE INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE @ 113

19 or Nehemiah 7:68f. “relate totally to our fleshly world” and are not
inspired. Uninspired biblical writings are Jude, James, Hebrews,
Ecclesiastes, Esther, and Chronicles. The Synoptic Gospels, Judges, and
Samuel are only partially inspired.”
Criticism of fhis view must again stress that element of truth it
contains. In fact, the Christian church has long taught that the ideas
found in the Bible are inspired. God determined the contents of the writ-
ings, as e.g., Augustine states.”
Until the Enlightenment,” however, this teaching was embedded in
the overarching doctrine that Scripture’s very words are inspired. To
remove inspiration from its embeddedness in the larger framework had to
mean that 2 Timothy 3:16 could no longer be upheld.'® The inescapable
conclusion is this: a doctrine that adds nothing more substantial to per-
sonal inspiration than idea inspiration is no longer compatible with bibli-
cal revelation. It rather marks out the borders, before exegetical work ever
begins, of what may count as revelation and what may not.
Idea inspiration, just like personal inspiration, results in uncer-
tainty about the divinely worked content of the Bible, or, as Ricoeur
would say, about the “objective dimension of revelation.” For “where is
the boundary between essential and non-essential?’”’""' Such questions
will confront us again when we take up the subject of canon. But they
already carry decisive weight with respect to inspiration. Finally, a view
of inspiration that extends merely to the ideas is no more satisfactory
than one that applies only to the person.'”
Let us bring the point in question back to this formulation: it is not a
matter of whether one should also affirm that inspiration extends to ideas.
The question is rather whether inspiration should extend only to ideas.

3. VERBAL INSPIRATION

The doctrine of verbal inspiration is the third classical conception. It

predates the view that inspiration extends merely to ideas.
114 e BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

In order to grasp its traditional weight let us turn once more to a

historical overview.
Jesus’ interpretation of Scripture is not undisputed. Yet Matthew
5:17f. in conjunction with John 10:35 shows that Jesus understood Holy
Scripture, as it existed in his day, as authoritative, inspired, and able to
bring about its own fulfillment, right down to the finest details (the very
smallest letter!).'°? Clearly Paul’s position is an affirmation of verbal
inspiration. “No one can believe more adamantly in the Scripture than
he.”!* At the end of the first century, the inspiration of Holy Scripture in
its entirety is affirmed in Clement’s first epistle.'* Justin (mid-second
century A.D.) is “the first orthodox theologian who possessed something
akin to a ‘doctrine of Holy Scripture,” according to Campenhausen (p.
106). The inspiration of the whole of Scripture was a set starting point
for him.'°° The same can be said with respect to Irenaeus and
Tertullian.'” Campenhausen (p. 365) expressly describes Origen as “an
advocate of verbal inspiration’ He makes “the Bible a subject of dog-
matics.”'* As a result he sees the Bible as “totally perfect,’ without con-
tradiction, “written down under the influence of the Holy Spirit’; his
preferred designation of the Bible is “divine writings” (theiai graphai).'°
For all these writers, Scripture’s freedom of contradiction, infallibility,
perfection, unity, and truth are important. Augustine, too, taught the
doctrine of verbal inspiration.''® Most of all he emphasized Holy
Scripture’s infallibility and absence of contradiction (“nihil in eis
omnino errasse, nihil fallaciter posuisse” [“in them there is absolutely
no error; nothing presents a deception”]).'"' Divine inspiration deter-
mined, e.g., the content and the order of the Gospels in the New
Testament.'? Even failures in the apostles’ memory were caused by the
Holy Spirit in order to instruct us.''’ Augustine prized the idea that the
gospel served as the present Lord (“quasi praesentem dominum’’) and
the “mouth of Christ” (“Os Christi’’).''* Thus were laid the essential
basic lines of a doctrine of inspiration that endured right down to the
Reformation. The medieval Scholastics viewed God as the sole ultimate
originator of the Scripture. The human authors receded into the back-
 THE INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE @ 115

ground. They were called secretaries, writing instruments, scribes, and

so on. The absolute inerrancy of the Bible was roundly affirmed."'’
According to Gabriel Biel (d. 1495) the Bible “arose through dictation
and inspiration by the Holy Spirit?’"'* Kropatscheck summarized the
doctrine of Scripture of the Middle Ages in this way: “Scripture is with-
out error, perfect, sufficient, clear” (p. 434). Presumably a doctrine of
“sola scriptura” could not have arisen without this “common Catholic”
conception.'”
Luther’s stance toward verbal inspiration remains disputed.
Outstanding researchers occupy various positions. While R. Bring holds
the view that Luther developed no doctrine cf verbal inspiration,''® O.
Scheel arrived at the conclusion that “Luther appears even to have pre-
supposed the doctrine of verbal inspiration,”''® Presumably Scheel is cor-
rect that Luther’s approach to Scripture contains contradictions.’
Calvin’s view is clearer. For him the writers of the New Testament are
“authorized scribes of the Holy Spirit’ (Inst IV, 8, 9). The entire Bible
is dictated by the Holy Spirit.'*! In Flacius we encounter formulations
that remind us of Augustine: “Scripturam esse divinitus . . . inspiratam”’
(“Scripture is inspired through divine prompting”) and “Spiritus s. et
Pater ipse per os Prophetarum et Apostolorum locutus est concripsitque
sacram Scripturam” (“The Holy Spirit and the Father himself spoke, and
the Holy Spirit wrote, through the mouth of the prophets and apos-
tles’’).'22 Here the inspiration of all of Scripture, with God as the ultimate
author and actual speaker, comes to clear expression. It is well known
that Protestant Scholasticism thought through verbal inspiration in
detail. It is Scripture that is inspired, it is the entire Scripture.’
Inspiration also applies to related things like “res historicae, chronolog-
icae, genealogicae, astrologicae, physicae et politicae” (“matters of his-
tory, chronology, genealogy, astronomy, physics, and politics”). True,
these are not essential to salvation, but they aid in understanding the
overall setting.'*4 Hollaz furnishes a classical formulation of the doctrine
of verbal inspiration: “Omnia et singula verba, quae in s. codice legun-
tur, a spiritu s. prophetis et apostolis inspirata et in calamum dictata
116 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

sunt” (“Every individual word that is read in Holy Scripture was given
from the Holy Spirit to the prophets and apostles and dictated into their
pens’”’).!2> God is the ultimate author of Scripture (causa principalis); the
human authors serve only as his instruments (causa instrumentalis).'*°
Inspiration encompasses both the suggestio rerum (inspiration of the
content) and also the suggestio verborum (inspiration of the words).
Obviously it also encompasses the commission to write.'” Thus we
again encounter the combination of all three conceptions of inspiration:
personal inspiration, idea inspiration, word inspiration.
It remained for “modern knowledge of the world and insight into
the historically conditioned nature of the biblical testimony,’ as this
knowledge and insight gained dominance in the course of the
Enlightenment, to shake and suppress verbal inspiration more and
more.'”* Yet scholarly Pietism and fundamentalism, along with official
Roman Catholic dogmatic teaching, have held to verbal inspiration right
down to the present time.'”

4, CRITICISM OF VERBAL INSPIRATION

Following the above historical survey, our task is to lay out the many-
sided critique that has been leveled at the doctrine of verbal inspiration
in the history of modern theology. Criticisms emerge at various levels.
A 1972 publication edited by Heinrich Ott and others (Antwort des
Glaubens) calls the “theory of literal inspiration” “fundamentalistic” in
view of historical facts.'*° The theory is to be rejected in light of three
considerations: #1) “historical consciousness,” #2) “intellectual hon-
esty,’ and #3) “the fact of the incarnation.”"*!
Consideration #2) resembles more the verdict of a moral judge
than the sober observation of a theologian. It would bar from the dis-
cussion, on the grounds of alleged dishonesty, all advocates of verbal
inspiration who have lived since the Enlightenment. Consideration #3)
overlooks that in the course of history a parallel was actually drawn
between the “doctrine of the divine-human nature of the Bible” and
 THE INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE @ 117

Christology in order to support the inspiration of the Bible.'*? Taking the

form of word and taking the form of flesh (incarnation) seemed to fur-
nish mutually supporting, comparable events. For this reason it is prefer-
able not to adduce the fact of the Incarnation as evidence against verbal
inspiration. {ndeed,’otherwise the implication of the Divine Son’s sin-
lessness would be the errorlessness of God’s Word. On the other hand,
consideration #1) above does possess some weight. On the whole, how-
ever, the doctrine of verbal inspiration cannot be so quickly dismissed
as it is in Antwort des Glaubens.
But what is the substance of the criticism? One of the objections
runs thus: the doctrine of verbal inspiration is logical and abstract and
thereby incapable of grasping “the actual composition of Scripture,’
In point of fact the doctrine as such possesses a somewhat scholastic feel
and misleads in the direction of deductive thinking. If the doctrine, how-
ever, suffers from abstraction, that is not yet necessarily an indictment
against Scripture itself.
A second objection asserts that Scripture contains mistakes.'**
This objection implies that the Holy Spirit would be incapable of
inspiring errors to be written. But is this implication true? Is it really
unthinkable that the Holy Spirit, for one reason or another, might let
this or that miscue stand—or even make use of it (see Augustine!)?
Hofmann, e.g., had the provocative insight that the Scripture is a unity
and inspired, while at the same time he emphasized that in a few
places it erred.'*
A third objection suggests that the Scripture makes no claim “to
be the product of the Holy Spirit’s direct dictation” in each and every
passage." As a matter of fact, this is correct. If verbal inspiration
depends on the idea of dictation, it must at least be modified.
A fourth objection charges that the doctrine of verbal inspiration
transforms that living book called the Bible into a “law book”’'” “whose
individual paragraphs are to be binding for all alike without any differ-
entiation of their internal value.”'** Our historical survey indicates, how-
ever, that this assertion is untenable. Long ago Flacius made note of the
118 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

“difference as well as convergence of law and gospel.” Protestant

Scholastic dogmatics distinguished constantly between what was essen-
tial to salvation in Scripture and what was not. It used the expression
“unimportant” (“leviculae”), e.g., for 2 Timothy 4:13.'° The differences
of style and character of the human authors were recognized.'*' Above
all Bengel emphasized levels of inspiration'” and so forth. It is not true,
therefore, that to defend verbal inspiration is to be a “legalistic biblicist
and hair-splitter’’'*°
A fifth objection runs that the various readings and other phe-
nomena that stem from text-critical researches no longer permit a doc-
trine of verbal inspiration.'* As soon as verbal inspiration is related to
the original manuscripts, however, this objection loses force.
A sixth objection sees historical research and verbal inspiration as
fundamentally antithetical. E.g., Abraham states that we cannot “main-
tain their [evangelicals’] position about [verbal] inspiration and at the
same time take history seriously.’ This applies all the more, he contin-
ues, in view of the relation between inspiration and historical-critical
work: “We must either abandon critical historical study and honestly
admit this or we must abandon the theology of inerrancy:’'** Why?
Because of the established dictum: “Historical research handles the
Bible like any other human book.’'** And because precisely in the
course of executing this approach “many of its assertions” have turned
out to be “incorrect.”'” Yet if verbal inspiration really did exclude his-
torical understanding of the Bible, it would find itself in contradiction
with revelation itself (cf. chap. 6 above).
A seventh objection proceeds from the assertion that we as believ-
ers are not dependent on verbal inspiration. It is not the Scripture that is
the foundation of faith in Jesus Christ but the opposite: faith in Christ
confers “‘a special reputation” on Scripture.'** That argument is at least
as old as Schleiermacher.'*? But which Jesus is it, then, that we are deal-
ing with? Our faith is, after all, not mythical. It is historically bound and
to that extent also transmitted through the content of the Bible.
An eighth objection occasionally encountered is that a return to
 THE INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE @ 119

verbal inspiration would mean “‘a complete break with [contemporary]

science.”'®° Abraham demands that our doctrine of inspiration be “con-
temporary,'*' coherent, and credible.”'**Isn’t it rather true, however, that
it is more important for the doctrine to correspond to its object? And is
science static? Is it not rather undergoing constant revision?
The ninth objection claims that Scripture contains contradic-
tions.'*? If this objection can be sustained, then a doctrine of inspiration
is no longer possible.
Positively, the advantages of the doctrine of inspiration should now
be assessed. The doctrine possesses #1) a logical and consistent com-
prehensiveness. It is #2) in a position to hear what all of Scripture has
to say. It has no need, then, to attempt the Sisyphean task of separating
between the “husk” and the “kernel,” between “eternal truth” and “con-
tingent appearance’ in Scripture. It can #3) successfully press the
claims of the “absolute” dimension of revelation and imparts certainty
to us regarding the God-given content of the Scripture. It is the view that
#4) comports most readily with Scripture itself (2Ti 3:16).
A revelational theology cannot give up these advantages. Above all
it cannot dispense with being in agreement with Scripture. It will main-
tain close connection, therefore, with verbal inspiration. At the same
time it will desire to respond adequately to justified criticism.
Without going into details to be covered below, let us state this pre-
liminary conclusion: it is Scripture that is inspired.'** Mere personal
inspiration or idea inspiration cannot satisfy. Yet in Christian tradition
both personal and idea inspiration are included in the notion of inspired
Scripture. Corresponding to this inspiration, an inspiration of the inter-
preter is also present (see chap. 5 above). Nevertheless, inspiration of the
interpreter lies on a different level, as we will clarify below. We may add
here that this conception of inspired Scripture is in essential agreement
with Jewish understanding at the time of the apostles.
What we have just said deals with the inspiration of Scripture in
its entirety. We speak therefore of the entire inspiration of Scripture.
120 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

5. ENTIRE INSPIRATION

It will now be our task to unfold what we mean in speaking of entire

inspiration.
Once more we take revelation itself as our starting point. The con-
cept of “entire inspiration” is directly from the Bible. It is rooted in 2
Timothy 3:16: “All Scripture is given by God” (Revised Elberfelder
Bible). Instead of “all Scripture” some prefer to translate “every
Scripture passage’’'®* or “every Bible passage.”'” With Holtz, Jeremias,
Schlatter, Schrenk, Stuhlmacher, and others we understand 2 Timothy
3:16 in the extensive, not limited, sense.'** It speaks, therefore, of the
entire Holy Scripture as it existed at that time, transmitted through Israel.
Schlatter comments that Paul “did not speak of certain or of a few pas-
sages, but of all that stands written in the Bible, in asserting that
Scripture brings us a divine gift?’'° The extensive translation of the verse
is also supported by early church history.'°
Applying an overtly biblical term like entire inspiration is prefer-
able to resorting to some other conceptual formation. For neither per-
sonal nor idea inspiration can base itself directly on biblical terms.
In addition, entire inspiration offers the advantage of furnishing a
terminological bridge to conceptions stemming from the background of
historical theology, where one encounters such phrases as “plenary
inspiration’’'*! or “pleine inspiration.”'
The third advantage is that we can thereby take up influential tra-
ditions out of our own theological background. Preus has made clear
that in Lutheran orthodoxy the entirety of Scripture was regarded as
inspired.'*? The prophetic/salvation-historical theology could likewise
emphasize that we must begin with the inspiration of “Scripture as a uni-
fied whole.”' This was but a furtherance of what J. A. Bengel had left
as a legacy for future generations: to hear,and heed the whole of
Scripture.'® Pietism attempted to stay on this same track. Accordingly
the Gnadauer Federation stated in a resolution published in 1981: “We
 THE INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE @ 121

believe and confess that the entire Bible is God’s word, effected and per-
meated by the Holy Spirit’’'
Fourth, the term entire inspiration offers hope of dismantling mis-
understandings and blunders associated with the traditional doctrine of
“verbal inspiration”
There is one aspect of the hotly disputed doctrine of verbal inspi-
ration that we share, however: God’s Spirit brought forth and permeates
absolutely no less or other than the entire Scripture. Any notion of par-
tial inspiration remains excluded.
We have thereby already decided how we will answer the old con-
troversial question: “Is” the Bible God’s word, or does it only “‘contain”
God’s word? At least since Thomas Hobbes’ Leviathan (1651) the
notion has spread that the Bible and God’s word are two different
things.'” In volume one of his treatise on the canon, Johann Salomo
Semler coined the classical formulation, “Holy Scripture is quite
entirely to be distinguished from word of God’’'* In Karl August Keil’s
hermeneutic (1810), e.g., there is a definite distinction made between
“that which is appropriate to all times and persons” and “that which was
expressed only for former times and needs.”'* Among conservative
theologians “God’s word” was most preferably located in a soteriolog-
ical sphere. Martin Kahler’s procedure is instructive here. He too pro-
ceeds from the premise that “God’s word and the Bible are not to be
automatically equated’’™ It is therefore a theological task to determine
the “essential content,’ “midpoint,” and “major focus” of Scripture.”
“One must therefore experience the word of God from the Bible.”"”” For
Kahler it is “faith in justification” that forms the Bible’s midpoint.” H.
E. Weber,” among others, has followed him in this, although the defin-
itions and delimitations vary regarding what God’s word is. Thus F.
Traub, e.g., begins with the “fact of Christ”: “All in the Scripture that
‘Christum treibet, i.e., either is a direct expression of the fact of Christ
or stands in necessary inner connection with that fact, is word of God.”
For Traub this excludes, e.g., “the reports about the empty grave”; they
are therefore not “word of God.”'® A further possibility of distilling the
122 e BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

word of God from the Bible involves discerning whether a certain state-
ment becomes word of God for me. Traub mentions this possibility as
well: “Only a certain content, one that legitimates itself as divine in
heart and conscience, can arouse in me the impression that God is
addressing me through it’”'” In this way the subjectivity of the hearer
becomes the decisive criterion for the word of God. In any case, how-
ever, this amounts to the distinction already alluded to between “shell
and kernel,’ essential and nonessential.'”
On the other hand there can be no doubt that Luther,” the confes-
sional documents, and Protestant Scholasticism,'* along with Bengel'*!
and scientific Pietism including salvation-historical theology of the
nineteenth century'* stood firm in holding that Scripture is God’s Word.
We have no choice but one. Only the assertion that the Bible as a
whole “is” God’s gift and revelation is able to do justice to Scripture
itself.
That leads us into interaction with the doctrine of the three-stage
word of God: #1) God’s actual revelation, #2) the witness to this reve- ~
lation (the testified word), and #3) the preached word.
Karl Barth (1886-1968) gave this doctrine classic expression in
modern times. It is good, wrote Barth in his Church Dogmatics, “‘to take
note of the special significance of the fact that we must call the Bible pre-
cisely a witness of God’s revelation. Therein, undoubtedly, lies a restric-
tion: we thus distinguish the Bible as such from revelation. A witness is,
indeed, not simply identical with that which is witnessed to by and in
him.”'* The Bible is, therefore, “not itself revelation.’'** To the extent that
the Bible is “merely” “ a human word,” it must be “historically” investi-
gated and understood.'** To put it in other words: revelation passes into
the Bible only fragmentedly. Elsewhere Barth says that we must distin-
guish “between the flow of words, on the one hand, and that which lies
‘back behind’ them and seeks to become visible.”'** That which lies
“back behind” is the actual revelation. Bible and proclamation, however,
are only derivative phenomena. This is obviously an attractive modern
garb for the older dictum: The Bible “contains” God’s word.
 THE INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE @ 123

Beyond those we might call “Barthians” in a narrow sense,'*’

Barth’s doctrine of the three forms of God’s word is mirrored in
Bultmann and his students,'**in modern Lutherans,'*’and by those theo-
logians who wish to relate their work positively to Barth and Bultmann.'”
The line
inwhich Barth stands can, as already indicated, be traced
back farther. First mention goes to Barth’s teacher Adolf Harnack, who
could say: “Religion always lies behind its material manifestation.’!”!
Related to Harnack’s view is Gunkel’s statement: “Cutting loose from
_ the letter teaches one to grasp the Spirit who gives life.’!”? Still earlier
W. Schmidt (1869) emphasized the testimonial quality of the Bible:
“God’s revelation is not transmitted to us in and of itself; it is rather
transmitted to us in the garb in which it formerly clothed human hearts
that had already experienced it:’'*> Once more we recall Thomas
Hobbes’ Leviathan, for which the Bible was not revelation but “the
record of that revelation?’ For all these authors the “actual” or “gen-
uine” lay behind the Bible. This “actual” is no longer accessible in pure
form. We must content ourselves with the world of “appearance,” to
which the Bible also belongs, with all its errors and imperfections.
Girgensohn’s view is much the same; for him revelation stands “behind”
the Bible.'** Similarly, Schrenk sees the Bible as the bearer of revela-
tion.'® Clearly, an affinity exists here in continental thought with
German idealism and the Platonism that attends it. This has been rightly
criticized by Esking and Traub, among others.'” Traub goes so far as to
say that in Karl Barth’s work “the Bible in its full scope is surrendered
to literary and historical criticism:”'*
It has now become clear why we cannot befriend the doctrine of
the three forms of the word of God. It devastates Scripture’s God-given-
ness (2Ti 3:16) at the decisive juncture, namely, precisely where Scripture
should take form as the ultimately intended word of the Holy Spirit. It
breaks the bond with the biblical word that has gone out in concrete and
contingent form, in that it ultimately binds us to a nonconcrete, timeless
“back behind.” It also contradicts the position of both Luther and other
Reformers, for whom the biblical word was the actual will of God.'”
124 e BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

In contrast, with the concept of entire inspiration we wish to

emphasize that what God’s Spirit has brought into being is precisely this
concrete, biblical revelation. This word—precisely in its concreteness
and contingency—is what God had to say to us. God’s own revelation
states that he did not intend to direct any other word to us (Heb 1:1f.).
It is this word, not some “back behind” or “actual.” Such is the humble
form that Scripture takes.
One aspect that we have not yet treated remains to be emphasized.
This aspect concerns the word entire. In contradistinction to verbal
inspiration, the concept of “entire inspiration” directs attention to the
overarching, interrelated whole. Verbal inspiration is constantly open to
the charge that various textual readings have been transmitted, or that
the biblical text contains gaps here and there.*” Can the term verbal be
used if the actual verbum (word) is uncertain or missing? Still, one must
consider that the doctrine of verbal inspiration is not unconditionally
committed to removing individual words in atomistic fashion from their
context.”"' The doctrine is also aware of the problems of text transmis-
sion and therefore concentrates on the original autographs.” The con-
cept of entire inspiration, however, avoids from the start the
misunderstanding that it amounts to an atomistic viewpoint, proof-text-
ing, or the like. Instead, it reminds us that inspiration involves the con-
nection of promise and fulfillment, of word and response, of origin and
goal of God’s ways. In this comprehensive connection little importance
can attach to individual words of the tradition that may be uncertain. The
understanding of the whole cannot thereby be imperiled.”
Entire inspiration relates therefore to the original text.

THE RELATION BETWEEN WORD OF GOD

AND WORD OF MAN

Once entire inspiration is accepted, the question immediately arises:

What is the relation between God’s word and the words of men? If the
entire Scripture is inspired, what is the role of the human authors in the
 THE INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE @ 125

rise of the Bible? Is the Bible “a book that fell down from heaven” (to
use a famous cliché whose actual use has never been documented, as far
as I know)?
Once more the task will be to lay out the basic contours of revela-
tion itself. “Men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy
Spirit,’ says the New Testament (2Pe 1:21 NIV).
In his Gnomon Bengel emphasized the passivity of the persons
involved and the activity of God: “Non ferebant, sed ferebantur. Passive,
non active se habuerunt. Quod fertur, non sua vi, non suo labore movet
et promovet’” (“They do not set themselves in motion but are set in
motion. They act passively, not actively. What is set in motion is not of
its Own initiative and comes neither by its own strength nor from its own
effort’). Thus he could also praise the beauty of the divine speech:
“Deus, non ut homo, sed ut Deus verba facit, se ipso digna” (“God does
not make words like a human does but like God, words that are worthy
of him himself’’).* That is entirely in line with traditional Christian the-
ology, which through the centuries regarded God as the ultimate source
of enscripturated revelation. The view was that here God himself speaks.
Matthew and other New Testament authors made this clear through the
citation formulas they used. Thus it was “the Lord who spoke through
the prophets” (Mt 1:22; 2:15; cf. Lk 1:70). Justin,” Tertullian,’ and
Origen agree that “the sacred books” do not present “writings of men”;
they were “rather written down according to the will of the Father?”
Augustine, like Bengel, traces even the use of individual words back to
the will of the Holy Spirit.? This line of thinking persists through
Thomas Aquinas,?” Luther,?'° and Flacius, thus extending well into
Protestant Scholasticism. Flacius can occasionally say that God “wrote
through the hands” of human authors (“per eorundem manus conscrip-
sit’”’).2"" Bengel’s words are not essentially different: “Paracletus per
apostolos est locutus” (“The Spirit speaks through the apostles”’).”!* The
fathers of Pietism did not hesitate to liken the Bible to a “letter from
God.”?!3 Through Pietism and Johann Tobias Beck the same line extends
into present times.”'* In 1967 Hermann Sasse could write that it is a
126 e BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

“dogma of the entire church” that the Holy Scriptures “have God as their
author:”?'5 James Barr’s view that Scripture is a “product of the church’”'®
is a conception that could never have been accepted as Christian during
four-fifths of the whole of church history.
Even in the Scripture people “speak from God”; if the authors of
the biblical writings were really “moved by the Holy Spirit,’ then we in
fact must regard God as the ultimate author of Scripture. Through the
messengers we hear him. It is his word.
Occasionally the question has arisen whether “moved by the Holy
Spirit” means a form of special inspiration, or whether it rather denotes
the general gift of the Spirit conferred on all believers. Speaking for the
latter option is, e.g., Albert C. Sundberg.”” Certainly one will not be able
to speak of two “forms” of the Spirit. Still, the commissioning and
empowering to author a revelatory writing bears a special character.
Therefore, one must speak of a special, distinctive leading of the Spirit,
though a different sense than that envisioned by Sundberg and others.?!®
The goal of the Spirit’s work here was to confer a distinctive, normative
dignity to the Sacred Scriptures, while no such normative force attached
to the oral and other proclamation." This is the way the matter was seen
in earlier dogmatics, as well.?°
But what is the nature of human participation in the biblical writ-
ings? If God’s activity is emphasized, the danger easily arises of regard-
ing persons as mere media.
Surprisingly, however, we discover that the church as a whole has
held itself quite aloof from a conception of ecstatic inspiration. The
occasionally leveled charge that the church’s doctrine of verbal inspi-
ration depends on Philo’s concept of inspiration and is therefore also
ecstatic in nature lacks historical foundation. True, Chmiel has estab-
lished Philo’s influence in Justin,” but he judged that Justin by no
means viewed the writers of the Bible as passive transmitters. Rather,
these writers were involved in an “action consciente et propre” (“‘action
at once cooperative and individual’’).?”? Campenhausen stresses the dif-
ference between Origen and Philo: Origen taught neither a disengage-
 THE INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE @ 127

ment of human consciousness nor an ecstasy of the human authors.?2*

Augustine’s reflections are instructive here; in spite of his doctrine of
verbal inspiration, he does not hold to a view of mechanical inspira-
tion.”> Kropatscheck’s studied conclusion is that the early church
rejected écstasy as a major explanatory factor of inspiration.2*° Typical
of the attitude of old Protestant Scholasticism is Quenstedt, who
defended the full consciousness of the writers against any notions of
trance, ecstasy, or enthusiasm.”
Moreover, according to recent research Philo himself did not advo-
cate an ecstatic doctrine of inspiration.”* There is, therefore, no longer
any ground to work with an alleged “Philonic” concept of ecstatic
inspiration.
If one seeks elsewhere for a Jewish parallel to the early Christian
doctrine of inspiration, then it is more likely to be found in Josephus?”
or the rabbis than in Philo.?*°
Christian tradition does not tend, therefore, to an elimination of
the personality of the human authors. It does, however, lay emphas:s on
God’s speaking, and for that reason it often misapprehends the human
factor. Yet it is significant that we are dealing with emphasis and not with
an either-or judgment. So terms are employed like pens, styli (since
Gregory the Great; otherwise also in Luther),”*' scribes, secretaries,
notaries, actuaries, and the like, through the course of the many cen-
turies of church history. As recently as 1943, Pius XII in “Divino
afflante spiritu” likened the “sacred writers” to an “organon seu instru-
mentum”’ (“musical instruments or tool’’).”*? It is clear that the accent
was shifted to the opposite extreme at the beginning of the
Enlightenment.” Early on Richard Simon in his Histoire critique du
texte du Nouveau Testament (1689) emphasized the active participation
of men in the rise of Holy Scripture.** From a mediating position Childs
describes the present situation in these words: “few theologians in this
postcritical era would wish to deny that the active human participation
... iS an absolutely necessary feature for correctly understanding the
text. 7%
128 e BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

A doctrine of inspiration that does justice to revelation must

attempt to arrive at an emphasis that comports with Scripture itself.
Earlier we pointed to the “men spoke from God” dimension (2Pe 1:21);
we must now also unpack what it means that “men spoke.” True, being
filled with the Holy Spirit alters those so affected.’* It renders them
competent to hear, obey, and receive. Yet to a great degree it leaves intact
their creative constitution and their unmistakable personal identity.
“The human distinctiveness of the person affected by inspiration is not
destroyed.”” The inspired authors retain their consciousness, their per-
sonal capacities and intellectual strengths, their memory, their free
will—as even Augustine insisted long ago.”** They also maintain their
characteristic literary style.**° They select the material they use, at least
in part (cf. Jn 20:30f.; 21:24f.).4° They occupy a concrete historical
locale and write with certain recipients and opponents in mind. That is
the powerful kernel of truth in Bengel’s statement that there are various
“degrees of theopneustie:’*' Nevertheless, the view that there are “‘lev-
els” of the Spirit is unacceptable. One may, however, assume that vari-
ous writers were charged with differing mandates such that, e.g., the
various Gospels evince varying degrees of accuracy and precision.
Bengel was likewise justified in speaking of an apostolic “liberty” of
word choice.” The erring human memory comprises an area for a judg-
ment call involving the interrelationship of free human activity and the
Spirit’s activity. Both Augustine and Bengel were exercised by this ques-
tion. The solution at which both* arrived in fundamental agreement
may be regarded as exemplary: #1) there are such “errors of memory”;
#2) the supernatural power of the Scripture, or the superintendence of
the Spirit, renders these errors to the advantage of the readers.*** God
makes, therefore, even the errors of the messengers his servants—a
view, to be sure, that crowds the edge of what we can affirm on the basis
of revelation. All in all it would be good, then, to speak no more of
“styli” or “instruments” when referring to the biblical writers. They are
rather messengers.
This idea of messengers proves its value once more when we pose
 THE INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE @ 129

the question: How much insight did they have into the message that they
conveyed? Revelation itself answers: their insight was limited. Both the
content and the fulfillment of their message remained partially hidden
to their eyes (Pe 1:10f.; Mt 13:17). Just getting the message to the
messenger was sometimes attended by great difficulties, as accounts of
divine calls and angel visitations indicate. The disciples had problems
understanding Jesus’ words and passing them along in the appropriate
manner (cl. Mral3:9ff..-36ft.. 165i. dh! 222° 12716716512 25 ft.
21:23). The essential characteristic, then, of the biblical messengers is
their fidelity, not their understanding.
Because comprehensive understanding on the part of the messen-
gers was not a factor, even persons who did not belong to God’s people
could become God’s messengers (e.g., Balaam).”*° On the other hand,
revelation made use of purely human speech, because it wished to show
thereby what man is. J. T. Beck called this a “mirror of the truth?’ This
is evidently where some statements of Ecclesiastes belong (e.g., 3:19;
9:2). One must therefore constantly inquire who is speaking in a given
passage. Finally, it is not necessary that every individual writer has
known that his work was destined to become part of Holy Scripture. The
Holy Spirit could allow him to become a messenger taking part in rev-
elation’s enscripturation even without such foreknowledge.
What we have just tried to describe as the human participation in
the biblical writings may finally be summarized in the idea of the “mes-
senger.’” His two characteristic features are commitment and limitation.
The second of these, limitation, precludes the writer’s becoming a
coauthor. Coauthorship would mean synergism. Synergism, however,
would annul not only entire inspiration but also the givenness—what
Ricoeur refers to as the ‘“‘absoluteness”—of biblical revelation.** God
must, then, remain in place as the ultimate author. At the same time the
qualitative difference between the divine ultimate author and the human
messengers must remain in place as well.
In concluding this section there remains the task of presenting
more specifically the intermingledness of the sender and those sent, of
130 e@ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

the ultimate author and the messengers, of the speaker and the media-
tors of what was spoken at the level of the word.
An approach suggested by Karl Girgensohn may serve in orient-
ing our discussion here. He sees two forces at work in enscripturated rev-
elation: #1) a human “factor;’ and #2) a divine (pneumatic) “factor?”*
Infallibility belongs to the divine factor. The human factor, on the other
hand, is responsible for errors and individual discrepancies.*°
Girgensohn believes he can separate the two factors from each other.
E.g., there are “passages to which it would be grotesque to apply the idea
of inspiration,” such as in 2 Timothy 4:13 or 1 Timothy 5:23.”°!
J. I. Packer suggests a different approach. More recently I. H.
Marshall has followed a similar line. They describe the relation
between the God who acts and the persons who write as “concursio.’
This means that the divine and human relate to each other complemen-
tarily.**> Scripture can be explained at the level of human activity, but it
can also be explained at the level of divine working. Indeed, both levels
are at work at the same time and in an interpenetrating way.
Packer’s and Marshall’s model is well suited to make sense of the
intertwinedness of divine word and human word. The unity of revela-
tion remains intact. Girgensohn’s approach, in contrast, threatens to
bisect Scripture into two “Bibles,” a divine and a human. His model,
therefore, will not do justice to the coexistence and intertwinedness of
divine and human word. Entire inspiration is excluded by Girgensohn’s
approach. The Packer-Marshall approach, however, which we may term
concursive, possesses the advantage of being compatible with ancient
Christian doctrine. To take Augustine as an example once more: for the
Bible was “both entirely . . God’s work and also entirely . . . the work
of man.” Augustine thereby forewent “the determination of what is to
be charged to the account of one and what to the account of the other’”?5
Matthias Flacius’ example is likewise instructive. He spoke of an “ulti-
mate identification of human and divine word” and of the connection
between “docens” (teaching) and “discens” (learning).?*
This points the way ahead for us. Revelation, formed through the
 THE INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE @ 131

Holy Spirit, given written form by people, meets us as something uni-

fied and entire. It offers us no key with which to chop it into two levels
or strata. It seeks to be heard as a whole and in its interconnectedness—
in spite of its obvious differentiation between such varied individual
speakers as God, other supernatural created beings, or man. As Scripture
took form, word of God and word of man became fundamentally and
indissolubly intertwined:?** God wanted to speak in just this manner
through human agency (2Pe 1:21). Just as Jesus Christ is truly God and
truly man, yet is not divisible into two persons, but remains thus the Son
of God, so Scripture is simultaneously God’s word and man’s word, yet
not divisible into two “words.” It remains, finally and ultimately, God’s
word.

THE RELATION BETWEEN INSPIRATION AND HISTORY

In previous sections we have already touched on the relation between

inspiration and history. How does the divine Spirit who brings inspira-
tion about enter the world of humanity—a realm bound to space and
time? Conversely, how does historical research as modern man pursues
it relate with the inspired quality of enscripturated revelation?
It has become customary to regard historical investigation of the
Bible as militating against inspiration.?” As if man by his power could
tear God’s work from its hinges! Behind this understanding, however,
stands the conviction that history comprises an immanent causal nexus
into which God can hardly be integrated. As is well known, E. Troeltsch
(1865-1923) elevated this idea to a redoubtable principle of interpreta-
tion. Yet today it should be noted that causality has lost its former fame
as an omnicompetent explanatory factor. C.G. Jung could even state that
causality is “a statistical truth and not an axiom.”**
Our starting point is, however, somewhat different. Within the
horizon of revelation we understand history as that which God works or
makes possible.?*° God is constitutive for our concept of history, one
derived from revelation. For us, therefore, there can be no opposition in
132 e@ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

principle between historical investigation of the Bible and inspiration of

the Bible.
Indeed, we regard inspiration itself as a historical phenomenon.
Historical phenomenon means: God establishes communication with
certain persons in certain places at certain times so that they become
active as he intends. Or should the statement that “men spoke . . . as they
were moved by the Holy Spirit’ (2Pe 1:21) be understood as something
“unhistorical’’?
We unfold this starting point as we now consider the variegated
nature of the steps of inspiration. For we are dealing with diversity and
variegation, as the polutropos (in various ways) of Hebrews 1:1 deci-
sively indicates: “God spoke . . . at many times and in various ways.”
In a few eras of the history of interpretation, it was emphasized that
the Bible was dictated. The dictation theory reigned e.g., for
Augustine”® and in old Protestant Scholasticism, indeed up to the time
of Mosheim (1694-1755). Concepts and turns of phrase like “divinitus
esse dictum” (“What is given from God has been dictated”—
Augustine), “omnia dictata sunt” (“all is dictated” —Hollaz), “verbatim
dictata” (“literally dictated’”—Hutter), and “auctorem et dictatorem
illius esse Deum” (“God is the ultimate source, the one who dictated, of
every [Scripture]”—Schréder), are characteristic here.”*' Yet the desire
shows itself repeatedly to avoid a mechanical doctrine of inspiration.”
Thus for Flacius there was plenty of room for recognizing that Mark had
read Matthew, Luke had read Mark and Matthew, and John all three
Synoptic Gospels.’*? We observe this same striving to establish distance
from a mechanical doctrine of inspiration in modern scholarly funda-
mentalism.*™ This warns us against polemical oversimplification.
In reacting to Protestant Scholasticism’s dictation theory, some
went so far as to declare the theory as “heresy: This, too, is a path we
decline to follow.
We must rather conduct a careful test. Such a test will show that
by no means all of the Bible is dictated. There are, however, individual
sections that prove to be products of divine dictation. This applies, e.g.,
 THE INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE @ 133

to the Sinaitic Covenant Law in the narrower sense (Ex 34:27f.), the
Song of Moses (Dt 31:14ff.), the letters to the séven churches in
Revelation, or to Isaiah 8:1.
Dictation iis to be distinguished from the command to write. Such
a command indicates that something is to be written but avoids dicta-
tion that is written down word for word. Commands to write include,
e.g., God’s instruction to Moses after the battle with the Amalekites (Ex
17:14 NIV): “Write this on a scroll as something to be remembered. . . 2”
Also, Jeremiah 36 and Revelation go back to commands to write (Jer
36:1f., 27f.; Rev 1:11). Under the command to write, freedom of word
choice is preserved.
Precisely these last-named examples, however, show right at the
outset how complicated the matter of inspiration is. If John is to write
what he sees, then this command implicates the hearing, seeing, and
writing down using his own choice of words. This all extends itself over
a considerable period of time. Not until completion of the entire book
is the goal of the command in Revelation 1:11 attained (cf. Rev 22:18f.).
If inspiration is not to be arbitrarily limited to special “paralogical”
(irrational) factors or the like, then it must be in effect at least till the
goal in writing has been reached. At the same time we observe that the
act of writing things down presupposes at least a reflected, conscious
effort on the part of John.
Still more variegated is the process lying behind Jeremiah 36. The
prophet hears the word of the Lord (v. 1). It calls on him to prepare writ-
ing material, to write down his recollections of the words God previ-
ously spoke to him (v. 2: “from the time I began speaking to you in the
reign of Josiah till now,’ NIV). The prophet springs into action, calling
on his scribe Baruch and dictating to him. Later he discovers that the
words Baruch records are destroyed (vv. 4, 23). At renewed divine behest
a second document is prepared in a manner similar to the first. But there
is a difference: “And many similar words were added to” the original
words (v. 32). The document is, therefore, considerably expanded (cf. vv.
27-32). Not until completion of this collection of words could the Lord
134 e BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

speak to posterity by the mouth of his prophet (cf. Lk 1:70; Heb 1:1f.;
2Pe 1:21). For later generations, for whose sake the document is
designed (cf. 1Co 10:11), the completed collection under Jeremiah’s
name is as a whole God’s word (cf. Da 9:2). Here they are addressed
“from God” (2Pe 1:21!). To restrict inspiration to certain segments of
the entire process would be, once more, arbitrary. Inspiration rather
extends to the whole sequence right up to the final phase of a canonized
writing. The comprehensive inclusiveness of this process as a whole also
aptly illustrates the concept of “entire inspiration” that we have already
touched on.
Apart from the command to write, there is the additional consid-
eration that God confirms the completed book of an author. Isaiah and
Daniel, e.g., are to hand down their writings to disciples, and to later
generations, in secure fashion (Isa 8:16; Da 12:4). Here Daniel 12:4 is
of special interest. For “the words of the scroll” spoken of there must be
seen as applying to the whole of the book of Daniel as it existed at that
time. In composing his treatise, Daniel presumably made use of the
archives of the Neo-Babylonian and Persian empires.”® In addition there
were his own writings (7:1). Daniel 12:4 may possibly incorporate an
Assyrian loanword that must be translated: “preserve the words and seal
the book until the time of the end!” In any case it is to provide instruc-
tion and insight for later generations. Once more the concept of inspi-
ration must be conceived of in broad terms. In the case of Daniel it
encompasses the preservation of his own writings, the preservation of
national archives, the discerning use of both in a reflected literary work,
and the subsequent rise of the book of Daniel in its entirety. Not until
the book’s completion has inspiration attained its goal.
A restriction to a moment of enlightenment would be, therefore,
purely arbitrary. To conclude otherwise would be to confuse illumina-
tio (illumination) and inspiratio (inspiration). The use of the book of
Daniel by Jesus and the apostles (Mt 24:15) shows that they regarded
the entire book as inspired.
Let us now turn to the Luke’s two volumes. His prologue (Lk
 THE INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE @ 135

1:1-4) presents the most comprehensive account given by any biblical

author regarding what lies behind his work. We have already devoted
considerable attention to Luke (cf. section 2 above: “The Answer of
Revelation”). Let,us now determine what Luke has to teach us regard-
ing the relation of inspiration and history. Luke emphasizes both #1) the
historical reliability of what he reports and #2) the fact that his sources
are the apostolic bearers of the Spirit (“servants of the word,’ Lk 1:2).
That is, in his own way he binds historical investigation with divine
inspiration. When the early church, invoking the idea of apostolicity,
recognized the work of Luke, the student of Paul the apostle, as inspired
Scripture, the die was cast under the leading of the Holy Spirit, so to
speak, for seeing just this coalescence of historical investigation and
divine inspiration as part of God’s own intention. In Luke’s case inspi-
ration encompasses numerous stages and individual incidents and mat-
ters: the rise of sources (e.g., the “we” sections of Acts); the gathering
of data, the comparison and assessment of these data (cf. akribos, “care-
fully,’ “accurately,” in Lk 1:3); the incorporation of sources; the editing
of the work in its entirety; and so forth. We see, therefore, that sources
and documents that were already complete and available to Luke are
contained within the entirety of the revelatory phenomenon—even, of
course, if the human creators of the sources were oblivious to how their
work would later be put to use.
We select the next example to make clear that inspiration is to be
distinguished from normativity. As little as inspiration is to be confused
with illumination, just so little is inspiration to be confused with obli-
gation. In 1 Corinthians 7 we find the case of Paul citing a saying of
Jesus (v. 10). This dominical saying is both inspired (Jesus bears the
Spirit!) as well as normative. Two verses later Paul issues orders in his
own name (“I, not the Lord’; v. 12). As the context shows, this apostolic
command is likewise inspired (cf. 1Co 7:40!) as well as normative. A
few verses earlier, however, the apostle makes a “concession,” which he
sharply distinguishes from a “command” (v. 6; 2Co 8:8; Phm 8f.). Even
this “concession” is inspired (1Co 7:40). By its very nature, however, it
136 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

cannot be normative. Here, therefore, inspiration is seen to involve a cer-

tain latitude. We are dealing with biblical-inspired pastoral care which
as such is not intended for use as a universal decree. A similar conclu-
sion is in order regarding the “judgment” (gnome) that Paul expresses
in verses 25 and 40 (cf. vv. 28, 36, 38).
The list of examples could be extended. This suffices, however, to
show that inspiration entails a historical process in its entirety, the course
of which is superintended by God in such a way that, in the end, there
arises the word that is revelatory of God.
The “how” of this divine superintendence of history remains hid-
den from us. It is ultimately identical to the mystery of divine revelation
itself. Dogmaticians of earlier times were well advised to forgo trying
to explain the “how” of the “suggestio verborum.”?
Nevertheless, it contradicts the character of the entire inspired
process to detach individual elements from it or to attempt to qualify
such elements as “human.” Much can be classified as “unimportant”
when judged from man’s point of view. The tendency has shown itself
repeatedly to deny this “unimportant” material any inspired status. This
has been attempted, e.g., with respect to cosmological, historical, geo-
graphical, or chronological data that some regard as nonessential for sal-
vation.”” Such detachment or qualification, however, is damaging on two
counts. First, itis an assault on the character of a history whose very self-
presentation involves an entire nexus. Second, it is an assault on the
character of inspiration, which makes use of the entire nexus and in fact
itself comprises a historical process. Presumably it was not scurrility but
insight into these matters that moved post-Reformation dogmaticians, in
their disputes with Jesuits of their day, to extend dictation by the Holy
Spirit even to that which the human writers knew prior to writing.” In
any case they argued—quite rightly, in objective terms—using the con-
text established by biblical statements, a context'that is not to be torn to
pieces and whose even apparently “unimportant” features offer aids to
understanding.”' They rightly repulsed a move toward inappropriate
 THE INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE @ 137

atomistic consideration and upheld that aspect of inspiration that

involves its unified entirety.
Finally, we must still take up a special case that belongs on the one
hand to the issue of inspiration and history, and on the other to the issue
of God’s Word and man’s word. The matter before us is form criticism.
To put it more precisely, we must deal with the problem of human-col-
lective activity in the rise of biblical revelation. Can a collective pro-
duction be inspired? Can it serve as a messenger of God? When
form-critical investigation of the Bible arose, somewhat critical judg-
ments were made about the human authors. Wrede called the writers of
the New Testament “quite subordinate entities.’ For Wrede, the indi-
vidual conceptions are generally less important than the “general
type.””” In addition to this, many form critics tended to explain the bib-
lical writings in purely immanent fashion and to deny the significant
involvement of a personal God. The “Instructio” of the papal Bible com-
mission (1964) called for caution in the use of form criticism due to
such philosophical, anti-individualistic, and antisupernatural tenden-
cies.” Since then there have been a few significant changes. Unchanged,
however, remain #1) close association with research into the transmis-
sion of folklore,”* and #2) the “axiom” that the Synoptic Gospels are
part of a larger body of folk or popular literature.”
It appears now that this very “axiom” needs reworking. Riesenfeld,
Gerhardsson, Schiirmann, Ellis, and Riesner see Jesus as the point of
origination of the Gospel tradition. Rather than an “untamed stream,”
we are dealing with reflected and carefully protected tradition. The
proverbial”* “ditch” between Jesus and the Gospels is, therefore, begin-
ning to close.” This is supported from the tendency to date the Gospels
earlier.’8° Researchers like H. Schiirmann, S. H. Travis, R. Riesner, or E.
E. Ellis go a step farther. They take it as a serious possibility that cer-
tain traditions were already committed to writing before Jesus’ cruci-
fixion.?' It becomes increasingly clear that “folk literature” or “folk
tradition” is an ill-suited analogy for understanding the “sacred” tradi-
tion enshrined in the Gospels.?*? As far as the New Testament is con-
138 e@ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

cerned, therefore, the idea of a “creative collectivism” has lost its attrac-
tiveness. That does not mean, however, that we have no need to subject
these matters to fundamental scrutiny.
There is need here as well to make careful distinctions. Where rev-
elation itself justifies it, the idea of collective authorship presents no dif-
ficulties. E.g., the chronicles and archives that are used in the Bible
(Daniel, Ezra, Esther, and others) go back to multiple authors or groups
of authors. Then their work, too, is included in the entirety of the reve-
latory occurrence. The same goes for other sources used by biblical
authors, such as travel diaries (Ac 16:11ff.). We cannot even exclude the
possibility that Luke made use of group recollections, judging from
Luke 1:3. The idea of collective activity as such cannot, therefore, sim-
ply be dismissed summarily for the entire span of Scripture’s formation.
Revelation does lay down, however, three clear guidelines: #1) The idea
may not serve to nullify clear statements of Scripture that refer to a cer-
tain author, nor may it transfer responsibility for such a writing to a
merely presumed collective entity. One may not, e.g., refer authorship
of John’s gospel or Paul’s letters to a collective entity (cf. Jn 21:24; Ro
1:1; 1Ti 1:1; etc.). #2) The idea may not serve to turn biblical writings
or parts of them into more or less “accidental” products of literary his-
tory and thereby call in question the inspired final form of the texts. The
danger of such leveling comes to the fore, e.g., in W. Marxsen’s remarks
about synoptic exegesis, in which he opines that each stage of textual
formation—which, in addition, must remain hypothetical—can be
exegeted.”* #3) The idea may not serve to present the messengers, to
whom God entrusted the production of the texts’ final form, as merely
immanent-historical redactors or the like. From the purely immanent
standpoint, W. Wrede may be right when he depicts the biblical writers
as “quite subordinate entities’’** Revelation, however, demands that
these writers be regarded at the same time in their relation to the ulti-
mate source of revelation—and that means as inspired authors (cf. Mt
23:34; Jn 20:21; Eph 2:20). It goes without saying that this also applies
 THE INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE @ 139

to cases in which the author remains unknown to us, as e.g., the book
of Hebrews, or a few historical and wisdom books of the Old Testament.

ERRORS OF SCRIPTURE?

Any sketch of a doctrine of inspiration must take up the question of pos-

sible errors in Scripture. The predominant conviction today is that
Scripture has errors and that they are at least a grave liability for this
doctrine.
The question of errors in Scripture did not first arise with the
Enlightenment. It was posed first within the church itself. This is illus-
trated by comments in the so-called Muratorian Canon that seek to
explain the origins of the various Gospels: “Though various ideas are
taught in each of the Gospels, it makes no difference to the faith of
believers, since in all of them all things are declared by one sovereign
Spirit. . . ’”5° Study of the Bible itself, therefore, reveals a variety of
expression that necessarily gives rise to the question of whether what
one source says might bear correcting by another. Questions regarding
errors were posed from the outside, too. The Gnostic Ptolemy (second
century A.D.) observed contradictions between the Sermon on the
Mount and the Pentateuch.”** The pagan philosopher and writer
Porphyry (d. ca. A.D. 304) sought to prove the book of Daniel guilty of
historical inaccuracies.””
What response to these questions do we find in Christian tradition?
Before the end of the first century we find Clement of Rome writing that
“nothing incorrect or perverse is written” in the Holy Scriptures (1Cl
45:1 ff.).28* Justin (d. ca. A.D. 165) emphasized that Scripture is true and
free of contradictions.” In dialogue with Trypho the Jew he states: “I
am simply convinced that no scripture passage can contradict another
one. I would rather admit that I do not understand what is being said.””°
Irenaeus infers Scripture’s perfection from its inspiration.”' Both
Tertullian and Origen advocate the perfection, freedom from contradic-
tion, and infallibility of the entire Bible.** Augustine devotes a separate
140 e BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

work (De consensu evangelistarum) to the question of biblical contra-

dictions. He comes to the result that “every form of error’ is to be ruled
out with regard to the Gospel accounts (2.12, 29). He writes similarly
in Epist. 82, 3, 24: “ut conscriptores earum nihil in eis omnino errasse,
nihil fallaciter posuisse non dubitem” (“I have no doubt that the authors
of those [Gospels] err in absolutely nothing they wrote, that they mis-
represent nothing”). Augustine, therefore, mirrors the views found in
early ecclesiastical writers and interpreters: Holy Scripture is without
contradiction and error. It is historically true. The methodological ques-
tion arises already at this point: did the early-church interpreters read the
Bible less intensively or grasp it less adequately than modern criticism?
Or why is it that they arrived at such results?
Luther, on the one hand, reckoned with “errors” in Scripture.”* On
the other hand, he could say: “Scripture is God’s word, not the word of
man, which lies; not an iota is there for nothing” (WA V, 184).?° Also
here Flacius thought in more unified fashion. Inspiration did not render
the biblical authors sinless, but it rendered their doctrine inerrant.’
Interestingly, however, in Flacius’ view, only the apostles—not the dis-
ciples of the apostles—are free of error in this manner, because only
they are called by God.”” Protestant Scholasticism, which F. Lau grants
here a “great dogmatic achievement, ”** expended much energy on fur-
nishing a basis for the inerrancy of the Bible.”°? A. Calov (1612-86) for-
mulated the correct doctrine as follows: “Nullus error, vel in leviculis,
nullus memoriae lapsus nedum mendacium ullum locum habere potent
in universa Scriptura S” (“‘No error, even in entirely insignificant mat-
ters; no error of memory nor miniscule lie, can have a place in the
entirety of Holy Scripture”). Yet the Devil or wicked people whose
speech is recorded in Scripture are naturally not inerrant.*°' Scripture
contains no contradictions.*” It must be recalled that Calov fought
against Socinians and Catholics who held open the possibility of lapses
in memory or even additional errors in Scripture. In view of the battle
lines drawn at the time, Calov argued that if the Scripture errs at even
one point, then the entire Scripture becomes unreliable.>”
 THE INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE @ 141

A certain tension is present in Bengel (1687-1752). On the one

hand he sees the Evangelists as “without mistake or error’** On the
other, he concedes, even apostles are subject to “mistakes of memory?”
He therefore agreed with the possibility of a lapse of memory. Yet the
efficacy of the Scripture so overshadows these human mistakes that they
do not jeopardize our assurance.*%
Nowhere did the Enlightenment break so radically with Christian
tradition as in the question of errors in the Bible. Jacques Le Brun stated
that in the Enlightenment “secular knowledge and scientific methods”
became “judges of the truth claims of the books of the Bible?” The ora-
tor Richard Simon (1637-1712), who shared many views with the
Jesuits,” wrote the trailblazing Histoire critique du Vieux Testament
(1687), which asserted that the Bible contains errors. In the foreword of
his treatise he freely explained that he wished to deal a death blow to
the Protestant Scripture principle.** He believed that the textual alter-
ations he observed in biblical manuscripts “totally destroy the principle
of Protestants and Socinians, who look solely to just these manu-
scripts.” In Reventlow’s judgment?” this is “the origin of a systemati-
cally pursued biblical criticism based on the spirit of the
Enlightenment.” It should not be forgotten that Simon could submit the
Bible to such criticism because he presumed to have a superior vantage
point in the tradition of the Catholic Church. Johann Salomo Semler
(1725-91) republished Simon’s Histoire critique du Vieux Testament
and built his own work upon it.*"' The rationalism of the Enlightenment
sidelined the conception of the inerrancy of the Bible in a comprehen-
sive manner.?'? Some of what was claimed along this line, to be sure,
strikes one as curious—e.g., John Craig of England calculated the end
of the Bible’s believability as the year A.D. 3144, because all that is in
this world must pass away.’!?
The effects of this radical turn can be clarified best by following
the development of salvation-historical, biblicistic, or otherwise ““posi-
tive” theology. Here, as we saw in “The Range of Revelation” and “The
Relation Between Word of God and Word of Man” above, inspiration
142 e BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

was limited more and more to certain parts of the Bible. It was believed
that the noninspired parts could certainly contain errors and mistakes.
Thus, e.g., von Hofmann declared, “The Bible is something better than
a book without errors.”?'* He not only endorsed secondary interpolations
in the text; he also identified contradictions in it (e.g., 1Co 10:8 with Nu
25:9; Ac 7:4 with Ex 11:32). He also accepted the presence of mistakes
in the areas of cosmology, anthropology, psychology, and historiogra-
phy.?’* An Erlangen contemporary, the dogmatician Fr. H. R. Frank
(1827-94) held the view that the Bible was only infallible with respect
to truths that are essential for salvation. No more can be said from the
standpoint of theological science: “I do not wish to take responsibility
for teaching a Christian that saving faith involves faith in the absolute
inerrancy of Holy Scripture. . . ?”'® The view is also present that the
divine provision for us is simply an errant Bible.2” Even G. Schrenk
argued in this direction when he wrote that “God himself” never
intended verbal inspiration;** “repetitions, contradictions, gaps, and
seams” in the biblical text are undeniable signs of the errancy of the
Bible.3°
This state of affairs meets various responses in our time. The range
of solutions stretches from, say, B. S. Childs, who regards the Bible as
the context sui generis through which the Holy Spirit worked,*” to R. W.
Jenson, who advises us to give up all theories of inspiration, inerrancy,
and the like.*?!
This critical survey of history, which we can here only sketch,
drives us to the question: Why did Christian tradition for about 1,700
years invest so much erudition in the task of upholding the view that the
Bible is without error, if it is now just as clear that this errorlessness is
nonexistent? Further, what is the truth?
The latter question becomes still sharper when one notes that seg-
ments of contemporary Christendom are very staunch advocates of an
error-free Bible. They seek support in the complete reliability of the
Word of God in the sense expressed in this bit of verse by Carl Bernhard
Garve:
 THE INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE @ 143

My merciful Lord himself has spoken;

Should I twist the promise proffered?
N’er forsake me what he’s offered:
His word’s my never-failing token.*”?

Charles Haddon Spurgeon, speaking at a pastor’s conference in 1891

that was later dubbed his “spiritual will and last testament,’>” called “the
complete, verbal inspiration of Holy Scripture” a “fact, not a hypothe-
sis.” For him this involved the infallibility of the Bible: “If this book is
not infallible, then where are we to find infallibility?’”>”4 To detractors he
put the question, “Are these critics of the Scripture infallible?” “Is that
which goes by the title ‘science’ infallible?’**5 Recent position state-
ments of the Catholic Church still speak “of the complete inerrancy of
the Holy Scripture.”?”¢ It is well known that the “inerrancy” of Scripture
maintains its long-standing status as a hermeneutical presupposition of
scholarly fundamentalism.*”
Once more we decline to issue a deductive answer to the questions
raised. It is not permissible to argue: Because the Bible is God’s word,
and because God does not lie, the Bible is without error. We must rather
base our answer on what revelation itself states.
Revelation ascribes primarily four attributes to the word of God.
First, it is trustworthy. God’s word “is right and true; he is faithful in all
he does” (Ps 33:4 NIV). We can depend on it because what God says is
“certain” (2Pe 1:19). Second, it is efficacious; God’s word becomes
accomplished deed. From the first page of the Bible the pattern is estab-
lished: “He spoke, and it came to be; he commanded, and it stood firm”
(Ps 33:9 NIV). Jesus emphasized this aspect when he indicated that
“everything” in the law will be “accomplished” (Mt 5:18). Third, it
uncovers God’s will and thereby the way of salvation. It is redemptive
instruction (torah). Accordingly, one can say with the psalmist that
God’s word “is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path” (Ps 119:105
NIV; cf. Pr 6:23; 2Pe 1:19). In it the divine wisdom manifests itself
(Sirach 1:5, 24). Fourth, it is binding. As God’s word it puts man under
144 e BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

obligation. Obedience to it brings life, disobedience death (Dt 28: 1ff.;

30: 15ff.). Jesus states that also during the time of the new covenant, “the
Scripture cannot be broken [annulled]” (Jn 10:35; cf. Mt 5: 17f.).
We observe, therefore, that concepts like “inerrancy” or “infalli-
bility” are not used in the Bible. Still less does it reflect on “errors” or
the like. We need, therefore, first of all to subject our conceptual arse-
nal to critical scrutiny. It will prove advisable to use concepts that are as
close to what revelation itself expresses—and that means what the
Bible says—as possible. An example of such a concept: perfect trust-
worthiness. .
It was just this perfect trustworthiness of Scripture that was lived
and implemented in apostolic times. In his investigation of Paul’s use of
Scripture, Campenhausen arrived at the judgment, “No one can be more
of a believer in Scripture than he was.”?* Why? Scripture “was for him
the unerring, infallibly revealed “word of God.” Scripture is “absolutely
true” in “all that it says?”
With this conception Paul stands in the mainstream of Judaism of
his time. In Contra Apionem I, 38-41, Josephus submits that the Holy
Scriptures of Israel are in themselves without contradiction, possessing
full trustworthiness.**° According to Longenecker, all Jewish interpreters
of the first century held that the words of the Bible present “in fact the
very words of God”?!
If we take revelation’s own cue and begin with the perfect trust-
worthiness of the written word of God, then we note that one aspect of
this trustworthiness involves concern with and motion toward the way
of salvation (see above). That is to say that the Bible has an overriding
purpose that informs all it says. Inspiration in its historical entirety—in
our terminology, entire inspiration—serves the purpose of our redemp-
tion. That forces us to the question: What is the purpose, then, of this or
that individual scriptural statement? This insight is important for our
understanding of revelation, as authorities representing many view-
points have underscored.°*? Thus, e.g., one can infer from the context of
Matthew 14:1-12 that Matthew 14:9 does not intend to instruct us about
 THE INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE @ 145

the legal definition of the position held by Herod Antipas. He is there

called “king.” Yet in Matthew 14:1 he is quite correctly referred to as
“tetrarch.” It is possible to describe the usage of “king” in verse 9 as
“technically and objectively imprecise”? Perhaps Herod Antipas, cor-
responding to custom from the days of his father Herod the Great, was
still styled “King” by the people. Be that as it may, it would be inappro-
priate to measure 14:9 with a juristic-technical yardstick, because to do
so would be to miss the point of the purpose of the statement in its whole
context. To cite another example: what Peter says in Matthew 16:22 is
not divine but human (16:23). He speaks like a tool of Satan (cf. again
16:23). It would not occur to anyone to say: because Peter was wrong,
the Bible contains mistakes. It is rather the visible purpose of Matthew
16:21ff. to lay bare the lack of understanding of Jesus’ disciples at that
time and to show how Jesus was tried by his companions. Early-church
interpreters were already aware that where the Bible gives the words of
evil persons, or even of the Devil himself, it cannot be assumed that what
is said is free of error. Why? Because such an assumption would run
counter to the clear purpose of the corresponding report. We see, then,
that God’s inspiring Spirit wished for statements of wicked persons to
be taken up in the Bible, yet that such statements are not free of error or
mistake. To put it quite sharply: such statements are inspired (= con-
sciously taken up into written revelation), but not errorless.
It may appear hazardous to appeal to the goal-oriented nature of
the Bible. Isn’t it left, then, to every person’s caprice to determine what
the purpose of a statement is? Because of the importance of this ques-
tion, we will:devote an entire section to it below. For now let just this be
said: if revelation itself and its recognizable purpose be observed, then
the alleged or presumedly established errors in Scripture dwindle
considerably.
The question of errors in Scripture must, however, be set forth from
yet another fundamental point of view. We observe that errors are often
debated only in the historical realm. The “historical;’ however, is only
a subcategory of the cognitive understanding of revelation (see chap. 6,
146 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

“Cognitive Understanding”). Conversely, the question of errors does not

even arise under the dynamic understanding of Scripture (see chap. 6,
“Dynamic Understanding”), and the question is at most only remotely
significant under the ethical understanding (see chap. 6, “Ethical
Understanding”). The transforming and renewing power of the word
proves itself without doubt and error in the ongoing history of the
Christian community. The ethical understanding, as we underscored
already (chap. 6, “Revelation as Starting Point’’), occurs where a person
lives in a positive relation to revelation and desires its application to his
practical life. Even if he wavers as to which biblical command he ought
to apply in a given case, or which he should apply first, he still presup-
poses that the biblical statements are correct. It turns out, then, that the
“errors” in Scripture play a role only for the cognitive understanding.
Strangely, this fact has to my knowledge been largely overlooked
in the literature on this subject. The logical consequences have not been
drawn. Writers act as if it is a question of errors “of the Bible’”** In real-
ity we are dealing simply with errors for cognitive understanding, or
errors that are pressed by cognitive understanding of revelation. Or to
put it more sharply: the problems involve our cognitio (cognition), not
our oboedientia (obedience) or our conversio (conversion).
What is the outcome? First, the Bible is without error in the areas
of dynamic and ethical understanding.** Second, it is likewise without
error in the area of cognitive understanding once we grasp the Bible in
light of its divinely ordained purpose. These two affirmations are not
claims to be able to explain all that is in the Bible. They are also not
claims that there are no tensions or insoluble questions for our under-
standing, or that we ought to approach such questions blindly or dis-
honestly. These affirmations rather make allowance for the fact that in
spite of the Holy Spirit’s aid we can err in understanding. Difficulties
remain. Ongoing debate must be joined regarding the true purposes of
Scripture. These affirmations seek, in sum, to assert that we must pro-
ceed from the basis of what revelation itself expresses, and that revela-
tion furnishes us with a twofold mandate at this point:
 THE INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE @ 147

1. The enscripturated word of God is perfectly trustworthy and

without error in the sense of its divinely intended purpose, or we might
say, looked at from God’s point of view.
2. The human interpreter must let revelation say what revelation
itself wisHes to express. He may not subordinate it to his own demands
and wring from it (historical or other) data that it never intended to pro-
vide. The demand of the interpreter becomes arrogance when it places
itself at the same level as revelation. To recall Luther’s memorable for-
mulation: “the apostles and prophets occupy the place of authority,
while we listen at their feet. We hear what they have to say. We do not
say what they have to hear.’**°
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 CHAPTER EIGHT

The Canon

THE HISTORY OF THE CANON

What are the writings that make up inspired Scripture? In reply to this
question the church sets forth the “canon,’ i.e., the normative list of bib-
lical books.’
In order to arrive at an answer for ourselves it is necessary to be
reminded of some events in history.
As Leiman has shown, the Torah (books of Moses) and Prophets
of the Old Testament were accepted as normative by “‘ca. 500-450” B.C.”
The precise time of completion and acceptance of the third divi-
sion of the Old Testament, the ketubim (““Writings”’), is disputed. In crit-
ical circles it was long accepted that this step was not taken until about
A.D. 100. Reference was made to the so-called Council of Jamnia, said
to have taken place about A.D. 90.3 Now we know that there was proba-
bly some kind of academy in Jamnia at the time in question, but there
was no such “synod” or “council” as earlier believed. Furthermore, there
were no binding decisions made there concerning the extent of the (Old
Testament) canon.’
The sources point in another direction. Josephus writes at the end
of the first century A.D.: “We do not have ten thousand books, all of them
150 e BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

contradicting and battling against each other, but only twenty-two. .. .”°
This claim is not to be explained (away) facilely as “school tradition’
or regarded as simply incorrect.’ If we take Josephus at his word here,
he clearly intends to present the conception of Judaism as a whole at that
time.’ The twenty-two books of which he speaks are probably: five
books of Moses; thirteen prophetic books (Joshua, Judges-Ruth,
Samuel, Kings, Isaiah, Jeremiah-Lamentations, Ezekiel, Minor
Prophets, Job, Daniel, Ezra-Nehemiah, Chronicles, Esther); four addi-
tional books (Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon).’
The New Testament never cites those parts of the Greek Old
Testament (LXX) that extend beyond the Hebrew canon.” This fact can
only support Josephus’s claim.
It appears that the New Testament writers took as their basis the
same Old Testament canon as Josephus and other Jews'' of the New
Testament era (cf. Mt 23:35; Lk 24:44).'* When 4 Ezra 14:44-46 gives
the number of Old Testament books as twenty-four, it is likely that Ruth
and Lamentations are being reckoned as independent books. In this case
4 Ezra 14:44ff.Mestifies to a canon having the same proportions as
Josephus’s.'? On the other hand, the prologue to Sirach reveals that
already at that time a third division of the biblical books existed along-
side the Law and Prophets.'* The book of Sirach itself found no accep-
tance within the Hebrew canon. It arose about 175 B.c.'5 In sum, Leiman
is surely correct in dating the recognition of the “Writings,” and thereby
the recognition of the entire Hebrew canon, in the first half of the sec-
ond century B.C. at the latest.'¢
The New Testament canon as we know it today stood established
in the second half of the fourth century A.D. Two events were decisive:
Athanasius’ thirty-ninth festal Easter missive for the Eastern church
(A.D. 367), the Roman synod under Damasus for the Western church
(A.D. 382). Subsequent synodal decrees merely enacted and confirmed
these events. However: the process of canonization was already under-
way in New Testament times.” The book of Revelation views itself as a
canonical writing from the outset.'* Pedersen correctly views Colossians
 THE CANON @ 151

4:16 and 2 Peter 3:15f. as early evidence of the canonization process."

The last-named passage indicates that already at the time of 2 Peter a
Pauline corpus existed, the extent of which was known among the
churches. Canon formation can be traced in the writings of the apostolic
fathers.” The basic contours of the New Testament canon were complete
at around A.D. 200. According to Zahn it included the four Gospels, thir-
teen Pauline letters, Acts, the book of Revelation, 1 Peter, 1 John, and
perhaps 2 and 3 John and Jude.' Yet this protocanon had open bound-
aries. L.e., the status of individual writings remained disputed because
of dogmatic or other considerations, of which today we have only par-
tial knowledge.” Surprisingly, these open boundaries did not seem to be
a great source of unrest in the early church.” In any case, the determi-
nations of canon already mentioned above (A.D. 367 and 382) are, as to
its character, an acknowledgment of what already prevailed in the
church. They were not new definitions of what the canon comprised.
Aland’s verdict is apt: “The church as such, itself a product of divine
authorship, did not create the canon; it acknowledged the canon that had
been created.”
The difference between the Catholic and the Jewish canon in the
area of the Old Testament forms a special problem. As is well known,
on April 8, 1546, the Catholic Church at the Council of Trent acknowl-
edged as canonical the books of Tobit, Judith, 1 and 2 Maccabees,
Wisdom of Solomon, Sirach, and Baruch. The books are absent from the
Hebrew Bible. The Catholic Bible also contains additions to Esther and
Daniel that considerably exceed the text of those books in the Hebrew
version. These additions are explicable given the acceptance of the
Greek Bible (Septuagint) by the early church.” But this acceptance was
never formalized until Trent. Cajetan, Luther’s Catholic discussion part-
ner and opponent, still regarded the Old Testament Apocrypha with
reserve, feeling it could not be used to decide doctrinal questions.” The
Reformation churches wavered back and forth concerning the scope of
inspired Scripture. They doubted least their overall position relative to
the Old Testament. They went back to the Hebrew canon and excluded
152 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

the expansions of the LXX as “apocryphal,” by which they meant not

divinely inspired. In addition, Eusebius’s influence moved Luther to
separate Hebrews, James, Jude, and Revelation from the regular canon
of the New Testament in the so-called September Bible of 1522. Luther
himself based this separation, first, on church-historical grounds: these
books had “been seen quite differently long ago.” Second, as to their
content, Luther claimed that they did not measure up to the standard of
“preaching and promoting Christ.”* After 1530 Luther revoked the sep-
aration of these books. Yet Lutheran orthodoxy accorded them sec-
ondary rank, as they had been characterized as “antilegomena”
(disputed) in antiquity. Johann Gerhard called them deuterocanonical or
“canonicos Novi Test. libros secundi ordinis:”? Chemnitz regarded as
deuterocanonical books the following: Hebrews, 2 Peter, 2 and 3 John,
James, Jude, and Revelation.*° As late as the mid-nineteenth century
Philippi called these same books “deuterocanonical writings” and
“norma normata (having secondary authority in comparison with
known canonical writings).”?' The uncertainty of the Lutheran tradition
also shows up in the absence of lists of biblical writings in the various
confessional statements, which settled for definitions that left a certain
amount of latitude. Thus, e.g., the Confessio Virtembergica of 1522
stated: “We call Holy Scripture those canonical books of the Old and
New Testaments whose validity in the church was never in doubt.”??
Among Reformed churches the situation was a bit different. Calvin
clung to the New Testament canon in its modern form.*? Reformed bod-
ies produced lists of the canonical books, e.g., in the Confessio
Gallicana of 1559 (art. 2), in the Confessio Belgica of 1561 (art. 5), and
in the Westminster Confession of 1647 (chaps. 1, 2).*4
The Enlightenment shook the concept of canon more and more.
Theologians shifted their argument away from _ Protestant
Scholasticism’s stress on usage in church history. Instead they centered
on the content of the writings. This is seen already in Hugo Grotius’
annotations to the New Testament (1650).*° In J. S. Semler’s investiga-
tions into the history of the canon (1771-75) the issue emerged sharply.°°
 THE CANON e 153

Strangely, the consequences, which would necessarily have led to the

dissolution of the canon, were not drawn. True, there are occasionally
judgments with formal similarity to Luther’s approach. An example is
Schleiermacher’s rejection of the book of Revelation: “I cannot hold that
the Apocalypse is canonical, because it contains too little religious mate-
rial”’” On the other hand, the old distinction between proto- and deu-
terocanonical persists right down to Nitzsch-Stephan’s dogmatics
textbook (1912; see p. 291). Critical researchers could declare that Jude,
James, 2 Peter, Ephesians, and the Pastoral Epistles are no better than
the extrabiblical apostolic fathers.** And yet a consensus arose that the
canon decisions of the early church were all in all not so hopelessly mis-
taken, and that it was not desirable to alter the transmitted, factually
given canon.” To put it another way: there remained a pragmatic canon.“°
This has to a large degree shaped discourse on the problem right down
to the present in Protestantism.
Can we, however, be content with a pragmatic basis?

THE FOUNDING OF THE CANON

We are constrained, then, to take up the question just raised regarding

the proper basis for the canon. Not until that is settled can we deliber-
ate on the original question, the extent of the canon.
The attempt has been made to base canonicity “on the witness and
inner assurance of the Holy Spirit.’ This is how the Confessio Gallicana
of 1559 put it (part 4).*' Behind this confession stands Calvin. In his
Institutes he built “on the inner conviction of the Holy Spirit’? This
“inner witness of the Holy Spirit” (Testimonium Sancti Spiritus inter-
num) should not be overhastily dismissed as “‘subjective.” For in it the
spiritual experience of the church in the most various times and places
comes to light. It is accordingly a transsubjective element. And yet the
inner testimony of the Spirit is an occurrence that takes place precisely
in the realm of the church, and therefore it is disputed just as other spir-
itual experiences are.*’
154 e BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

Another attempt to establish a basis for canonicity has turned to

the idea of inspiration: canonical means that which is inspired. This was
the path taken, e.g., in Lutheran dogmatics of the seventeenth century.
The Westminster Confession (1647) argues similarly: books that are
“not... of divine inspiration” are “no part of the canon of the Scripture”
(chaps. 1, 3). Certainly the inspired Scripture is congruent with the
canonical books insofar as—as we have already noted—the entirety of
the Scripture we have before us is inspired. It remains an open question
at the outset, however, whether there are not also inspired writings that
did not make it into the canon. If the epistle to the Laodiceans, e.g.,
which Colossians 4:16 mentions, were discovered, we would surely have
to regard it as inspired. But would we also have to make room for it in
the canon? In any case there is the possibility that the concepts “canon-
ical” and “inspired” are not congruent.** But that means that further
explanation must be furnished to clarify what canonicity comprises.
A third means used to try to give a basis for canonicity involves
the core content of the Scriptures. An example here is found in Luther’s
statements in the September Testament of 1522. The “acid test” of
canonicity is the question whether the books in question “promote
Christ or not.’ Luther separated canonicity from the authors of the writ-
ings, stating in pointed terms: “What does not teach Christ is not apos-
tolic, even if St. Peter or St. Paul teaches it. Again, what does teach
Christ is apostolic, even if Judas, Ananias, Pilate and Herod say it.”* If
the principle is applied consistently, then #1) the meaning of “what pro-
motes Christ’ must be defined, and #2) sufficient criteria must be estab-
lished to determine which contents of the Bible correspond to this
definition. But this would be throwing open the door to a quite subjec-
tive appraisal.
On the other hand, one can throw out criteria based on content—
which ultimately rest on subjective decisions!—and relate canonicity to
certain persons. The status of apostolicity has been used in this way. As
is well known, the early church accepted as canonical that which was
generally viewed as having come from an apostle or the disciple of an
 THE CANON @ 155

apostle.” To the extent that Reformation churches harked back to the

early church,“ apostolicity remained also for them a determinative con-
sideration. Yet there are Scriptures whose apostolicity is disputed, e.g.,
Hebrews.” ,
There have been other attempts to give objective foundation to
canonicity. An example would be the essay by H. Ridderbos, who seeks
to ground canon in the reality of salvation history.”

REVELATION AS STARTING POINT

In this book so far we have consistently made revelation itself our point
of departure. That appears to be impossible in this case. For we possess
no “Koran,” no overarching and higher-level source of authority, that
would define the New Testament for us. Are we then caught in circular
reasoning when we seek a basis for the canon which makes it possible
to delimit enscripturated revelation—and then attempt to argue based
on the revelation that has not yet been delimited?
We should not give up a revelatory starting point here prematurely.
It might indeed turn out that the books that we find, in fact, already pres-
ent in the Bible contain references, guidelines, or promises for delimit-
ing revelation. If so, then it is primarily revelation that offers possibilities
for determining the extent of the canon. In this sense we see ourselves
“actually referred back to Scripture itself for answering the question of
what is canonical.”>!
Now, there can be no doubt that revelation understands itself as a
fundamentally closed entity. When Joshua is commanded to proceed
according to the Law “in all things,’ and is at the same time warned “‘to
turn neither to the right nor the left” of what the Law says (Jos 1:7f.),
then it is clear that the Torah is complete and unalterable (cf. also Dt 4:2;
Mal 3:22). It is just as clear that for the New Testament writers, the Holy
Scriptures of the Old Testament were a closed entity that could not be
expanded or reduced at will (cf. Mt 5:17ff.; 22:40; Lk 24:44f.; Jn 5:39;
10:35; 2Ti 3:16). In 2 Peter 3:15f. Paul’s epistles are likewise spoken of
156 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

as an entity that is in principle complete. In 2 Thessalonians 2:2 Paul

himself spoke out against the danger of letters circulating falsely under
his name. Jesus’ words, too, have a definite scope, according to 1
Corinthians 7: 10ff.2 Finally, Hebrews 1:1f. states that God’s revelation
culminates definitively in the time of Jesus. What these and other obser-
vations amount to is this: biblical revelation arrives in its final form in
the time of Jesus. It informs us that the history of revelation has now
arrived at its goal. Its completion is found in the Messiah. That is, it
clearly informs the church that further revelations are not to be expected,
though that which was given earlier should remain in force. Basically
then, the church is charged with the task of determining and accepting
a canon.
Along with the knowledge that biblical revelation is to be viewed
as a closed entity, there is a second consideration. Jn the New Testament
that will becomes visible which vouchsafes the doctrine of the apostles
and thereby also the doctrine of Jesus for all future times. “They
remained in the apostles’ doctrine” (Ac 2:42)—that line from Luke’s
account of apostolic times is practically a motto of church history. John
takes pains to protect the message of the apostles against divergences
and heresies (cf. Jn 21:23; 1Jn 2:18ff.; 4:1ff.; 2Jn 9; Rev 22:18f.). Paul
pronounces a curse on those who preach a gospel different from the one
he proclaimed and passed along (Gal 1:18; 2:2; 1Co 15:1ff., 11). Here
the apostles could rest on the promise of Jesus that the Spirit would
“Jead them into all truth” (Jn 16:13). To be a teacher, i.e., to pass along
the true teaching, was a distinctive charisma (gift) from the Holy Spirit
(Ro 12:7; 1Co 12:28; Eph 4:11). In short: the New Testament intends to
uphold the doctrine of Jesus and the Spirit-led apostles as the norm for
all times. This too suggests a canon whose very purpose is to delimit
what belongs to this doctrine.
Further, we already noted that inspiration comprises an entire
occurrence that extends to the point of enscripturation. What confronts
mankind, however, in the form of Scripture is not speech bereft of con-
text or interconnection. The various parts of revelation stand in a tem-
 THE CANON e@ 157

poral and material connection—most of all when their relationship is

direct. One such direct connection, e.g., is when a scripture is the ful-
fillment of a promise that was contained in an earlier scripture. It is one
and the same Spirit who leads the human authors (2Pe 1:21). From this
the question necessarily arises: which writings are to be counted as
belonging to the interconnected whole of God’s inspired revelation? The
answer, again, can basically only be given through speaking in terms of
a canon.
We conclude that revelation itself pushes inexorably in the direc-
tion of a canon. The church did nothing wrong but rather fulfilled one
of the tasks that revelation set before it when it determined the canon of
Holy Scripture. The only thing that revelation itself left open was: what
is the ultimate compass that this canon should have?

DELIMITING THE CANON

How could a definitive delimitation of the canon ever have been arrived
at? The decision process entailed both “subjective” and “objective” ele-
ments. Revelation, and with it the divine originator of it, intended for
there to be a canon. Canonization formed, we might say, the final stage
of inspiration. This is, so to speak, the more “objective” side of the
occurrence. The inner witness of the Spirit then moved the church to
recognition of the canonicity of the writings in question. This is, so to
speak, the more “subjective” side of the occurrence.
It remains important that the church “did not create the canon; it
recognized the canon that had been created,’ as K. Aland puts it.** “To
that extent the decision to canonize is not so much a decision but rather
simply an act of declaration.’ In the church’s decision-making process,
therefore, the conviction is expressed that revelation encounters us in
this ensemble of writings. The canon is not a product of the church** but
a product of the same divine Spirit who brought forth the various indi-
vidual writings.
On the human, “subjective” side it is most of all the “apostolic”
158 e BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

heritage of the New Testament writings (apostolicity) that plays a lead-

ing role. Here apostolicity is tantamount to inspiration. If apostolicity is
restricted to a strictly historical understanding, i.e., those who belonged
to the circle of the Twelve and Paul including their disciples, then diffi-
culties may arise. We have seen this, e.g., in the case of the book of
Hebrews. If apostolicity, however, is broadened to connote the special
sending and inspiration that God conferred on the biblical authors, then
the argument from apostolicity maintains its biblical justification. It can
adduce the fact that Jesus wished to be identified with his disciples: “He
who listens to you listens to me” (Lk 10:16 NIV).
On the other hand, application of alleged “material criteria” (e.g.,
“what promotes Christ”) in the canon question is a dead-end street. This
would presuppose that one already knows what revelation is. It ends in
the subjectivism of very different criteria. And it leads necessarily to a
“canon within the canon,” about which we will speak further below.
Let us attempt once more to glimpse the entire event of the can-
onization of the biblical books. It presents itself to us as a process flow-
ing forth from God, driven forward by revelation, and finally brought to
completion under the leading of the Spirit. In that it is bound to revela-
tion itself, the process is prevented from being handed over to the sub-
jectivity of the persons involved. The foundational and overarching
reality is the “divine superintendence,” of which Flacius spoke long
ago.” Without this providence of God the rise of the canon is
inexplicable.**

QUESTIONING THE CANON

Today the canon is called into question from two sides.
First, some attempt to expand the Protestant canon. Starting with
the concept of an interconnected history of tradition, e.g., H. Gese
wishes to make the unity of the Old and New Testaments visible once
more using the Apocrypha that lies historically between them. He
expressly states that “the reformation church did not promote a unified
 THE CANON @ 159

view of biblical tradition by culling the Apocrypha out of the corpus of

inspired Scripture.’*? We should, therefore, follow the Catholic Church
in recognizing the Old Testament Apocrypha as canonical books. A. C.
Sundberg argues along similar lines.
What should we say to this? It must first be admitted that this pro-
posal brings us into something of a difficult position. We are not able to
speak, as K. Barth did, of the “church” which in this case “determined,”
“discovered,” or “heard” something.*' For the testimony of the church is
split into Roman Catholic and Protestant versions. The question may be
raised, however, whether God’s revelation in the more limited Protestant
canon has not spawned spiritual rebirth, founded church bodies, and
made people certain of their salvation. If the answer is yes—and it must
be, judged from centuries-long, transsubjective experience—then there
is no reason for enlarging the Protestant canon. The unity of both testa-
ments can be recognized and presented even without the “history of tra-
dition” as proposed by Gese and Sundberg. On the other hand,
expanding the canon through the Apocrypha a la the Roman Catholic
Church does not necessarily have to be undone. It would, however, be
advisable for all Christians to grasp the conception that the apocryphal
books are to be read only under the standard of the other, unquestion-
ably canonical books (norma normata). To reiterate: the “inner” bound-
ary of the canon is fixed. It consists in the minimal canon of the
Reformed churches. This canon does not admit of further reduction. The
“outer” boundary, on the other hand, is not fixed. That is, until further
developments the question remains open to what extent use may be
made of the Apocrypha. What is debatable, then, is only the question of
expansion, not of reduction.
A second assault on the canon comes from those who wish to call
its validity into question without altering its external form. This occurs
through a so-called canon within the canon.
The concept “canon within the canon” occurs first in
Schleiermacher.” The undertaking that he describes is typical of
Enlightenment thinking. True, the attempt has been made to discover a
160 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

“canon in the canon” already with Luther.” Lonning rightly points out,
into Luther’s work.
however, that this is reading a later controversy
Luther’s canon-critical judgments are limited to those writings that
appeared questionable to him on canon-historical grounds. For the
other writings, however, he seeks principles of interpretation that com-
prehend the entirety of Scripture and do not limit this entirety to certain
“strata” or the like. The same can be said for Flacius. For him Paul was
“the unrivalled hero and scholar of Scripture,’ especially in Romans and
Galatians.®* He openly commits himself, therefore, to a Pauline inter-
pretation of Scripture. Yet Flacius remains committed to the unity of the
canon. What unites Luther and Flacius is this: #1) Like all other inter-
preters they operate with a de facto “canon within the canon.” #2) But
this “canon within the canon” serves to open up the whole unified
canon. #3) The de facto canon is, therefore, an interpretive and not
delimiting principle!”
The situation alters fundamentally with the rise of the
Enlightenment and the historical-critical method. Now Scripture is
combed for the binding-eternal universal that will free us from the tem-
poral and particular. The binding-eternal, however, is the “canon within
the canon.” The forms of determining it are various. Hofmann, e.g., dis-
tanced himself from the attempt to use doctrinal principles as a means
of differentiation. He spoke instead of a “‘state of affairs” in Scripture
that would furnish an internal plumb line. He describes it as “‘the rela-
tionship between God and mankind mediated by Jesus.’** Hofmann does
not succeed, however, in furnishing clear grounds by which to determine
what belongs to this “saving truth” and what does not.” Instead of the
sort of dogmatic definition that Hofmann used, one could try historical
definitions. One such possibility would be, e.g., to separate what is
“authentic” from what is “inauthentic.” Where, however, would there be
any secure ground here? As S. Pedersen stated, we must assume “that
from the first stage of the tradition there was the possibility that either
objective errors crept in or that the bearers of the tradition .. . gave” a
different “form” to what they passed along.” Or are there “material cri-
 THE CANON e@ 161

teria” of an interdisciplinary nature that make possible a distinction

between “essential and non-essential, central and peripheral, important
and unimportant . . ?’?” If so, which criteria? Blank says, “There is no
getting past the difference between time-conditioned expressions and
the abidingly valid.” One must postulate a “hierarchy of truths’? We find
ourselves, then, in a peculiar situation that on the one hand demands a
“canon within the canon,” yet on the other hand offers no help with the
question of how to arrive at one. Instead of an illuminating procedure
that produces convincing insights based on revelation, we meet rather
subjective judgments such as: “In this matter I see the pauline-reforma-
tion proclamation of justification as the truly central interpretation of the
word of God.”” How little is to be gained from such theories is shown
in the examples of H. Kiing and P. Lengsfeld.” Or in the present setting
ought one simply give up any concrete working-out of a “canon within
the canon” and regard the task rather as an essential process, a program
of continual truth seeking? I. Lénning appears to move in this direction
when he says the matter should “not be settled once for all by a theo-
logical formula,’ though there is a “theological necessity” for such a
program.” F. Hesse strikes out once more in another direction. For him
the canon in the canon exists first in the New Testament: “The New
Testament is norma normans. .. . The Old Testament . . . norma nor-
mata’”* But then he makes the qualification: “Of course one can basi-
cally describe the New Testament too only as norma normata. For the
actual and final norm, the norma normans in the strictest sense, is the
Gospel of Jesus Christ.” The New Testament, he continues, is after all
not unified.” Yet this confronts us once more with a question: what is,
then, this “Gospel of Jesus Christ’ in concrete terms? In the end F.
Hesse too fails to lead us out of the dilemma of difficulties.
In view of the two-hundred-year search for a “canon within the
canon” that will convince everyone on all sides, we are today in a posi-
tion to strike a balance. We see that the search was in vain. The con-
tributing factors have been rehearsed repeatedly elsewhere.” Let us cite
them now once more in brief.
162 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

From the standpoint of tradition-historical continuity, a “canon

within the canon” defies the basic principle of such a tradition history.
“It is ridiculous, tradition-historically speaking,” says H. Gese, “to labor
at identifying a so-called ‘canon within the canon’—a concept that
totally contradicts the essence of the idea of a canon. Apart from the fact
that to make such a choice is to indulge theological prejudice, it also
misunderstands the Bible’s historical character as it comes in view
through the history of revelation, the progressive unfolding of truth. The
tradition-historical approach to arriving at a ‘canon within the canon’
approach absolutizes traditions that seek to be understood only in the
most minute relations and dependencies to other traditions.”” The same
could be said from a salvation-historical standpoint.*° Again the “canon
within the canon” idea is subject to the charge of arbitrariness. It has,
indeed, not succeeded at achieving a general consensus. All the propos-
als that have been made betray the subjective preference of the scholars
who made them.*! Further, we observe that the end effect is an attenua-
tion of the biblical contents. Only what belongs to a given selected
“canon within the canon” may be listened to and pondered without
reservation.® To this should be added that having a “canon within the
canon” mutilates the continuity of Christian history. For the early church
knew of no such thing,*’ and the modern church does not accept it.** We
can only conclude that revelation itself contains absolutely no indica-
tions that would permit us a “canon within the canon.”
The undertaking of arriving at a “canon within the canon” must,
therefore, be abandoned.

THE CANONICAL CONNECTION OF INTERPRETATION

If the canon is consistent with revelation, then the interpretation we

engage in must be connected to this canon.
This connection has a twofold consequence. First, it forbids us to
treat texts outside the canon as if they stood on the same level as texts
within. We have seen in the case of the Old Testament Apocrypha that
 THE CANON @ 163

such a procedure causes problems. In any case it is impossible to dis-

solve the Old Testament, New Testament, or both together into a gen-
eral history of religions (Religionsgeschichte).*
Connection to the canon, then, means that the final form of the text
is normative. What revelation intends to convey is precisely what, in
fact, it does say in this inspired final form. The focus for understanding
revelation is not a more or less hypothetically reconstructed earlier tra-
dition or an “Ur-Markus” (a theoretical earlier form of Mark’s gospel
which some claim existed) or the like. While there may be plausible and
historically interesting arguments for such documents, they are docu-
ments that God has seen fit to reject. They are not ordained to mediate
a redemptive encounter with God to us in this preliminary form. They
are not that around which the church gathers. To that extent it is not
‘inappropriate,’ not “unscientific;’ but rather quite appropriate if the
church wishes to have little to do with them.*
We find concern for such a “canonical” interpretation advocated
emphatically in recent times by Brevard S. Childs and others under the
rubric of “canonical shape.’®”’ For Childs this means that we understand
the Old Testament as “canonical scripture,’ which in turn means most
of all that we place biblical expressions within the context that the canon
furnishes. It also means that we understand the canon in its entirety in
light of its embeddedness within the fellowship of faith.** Even if
Childs’ conceptions are not always balanced, this is still certainly a step
in the right direction.*
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 , - CHAPTER NINE

The Authority of
Scripture

THE QUESTION OF THE BASIS FOR

SCRIPTURAL AUTHORITY

There are very different ways offurnishing a basis for the authority of
Scripture. According to W. Schacewaldt, Scripture has “the scent of
truth” about it.'! Others point to the human necessity of possessing a
“bedrock of truth.” “Thinking persons seek a secure foundation for
faith?”
Yet can the thinking person of modern times come to grips with
an authority that lies outside himself? K. Scholder has established that
since Descartes’ Discours de la méthode . . . (1637), “the thinking ‘T’
has moved to the center of the universe.” As a consequence, reason has
“nothing on which to base itself except for itself alone’? This confidence
in human reason has, however, sustained such hefty blows in recent
decades that it can no longer bear the load it once did. The same can be
said of reason viewed as only relatively, as opposed to absolutely, bind-
ing. C. G. Jung makes this clear:
166 e BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

In a pensive mode the intellect may arrive at the con-

clusion that there is no truth. When, however, a per-
son loses his money, it is lost, and that is as true as
an absolute truth, and no intellectual pensiveness
can mollify that person. There is such a thing as a
convincing truth, but we have lost sight of it. And it
is most of all to our frivolous intellect that we owe
thanks for this.*

Presupposing, however, that we are inclined to accord to the Bible

the status of “convincing truth” and to that extent authority, then this
conviction can quite readily be combined with other authorities. We are
faced, therefore, with the subsequent question of whether the Bible is
the only, absolutely final authority in matters of Christian doctrine. The
Enlightenment tradition replies in the negative. It consciously abolished
the view that Holy Scripture is unique.’ From that point on it matters lit-
tle whether one continues to claim some degree of authority or privilege
for Scripture.° The only decisive consideration is what and how many
authorities make claims that rival the Bible’s own in depth and scope.
This leads once more to the question of how one establishes the
authority of Scripture. Because this question relates quite closely, how-
ever, to views of the number and relationship of Christian norms, we first
consider these views and the various normative authorities they suggest.

NORMATIVE AUTHORITIES ALONG WITH SCRIPTURE

1. To the present hour, Roman Catholicism supplements Scripture

by means of the church’s teaching office. True, highest authority is
claimed for Scripture. But in that the interpretation of Scripture is a
function of the teaching office, a de facto authority of high effectiveness
and importance is erected next to the Bible. One of the most essential
statements of Vatican II runs: “All that pertains to the form by which
Scripture is explained is subject ultimately to the judgment of the
 THE AUTHORITY OF SCRIPTURE @ 167

Church (Ecclesiae iudicio ultime subsunt), whose God-given commis-

sion and ministry it is to preserve and interpret the word of God?”
There is no need to belabor the point here that the Reformation
church, obligated to the principle of sola scriptura, rejected such a
teaching office. This does not affect recognition that understanding and
interpreting Scripture are actually tasks of the community of believers.
For now we also leave open the question—which we will take up later—
of the extent to which Scripture’s authority ought to be derived from the
church.
2. Rejection of the Roman Catholic teaching office, however,
sharpens the question whether comparable parabiblical authorities were
not created by Protestants. One thinks of Martin Kahler’s famous
expression “papacy of scholars,” a reference to what develops when the
Bible’s authority is spurned.’
“The radical Enlightenment’s criticism of revelation” reached its
first high point with Baruch Spinoza.’ His Tractatus theologico-politi-
cus (1670) criticized the prejudice that “reason must subordinate itself
to the reason-transcending revelation that is laid down in Scripture.”
Once the freedom and superiority of human reason is established in this
fashion, however, “the criticism of revelation truly” becomes the “pre-
supposition of scientific investigation of the Bible’’" This is what G.
Ebeling has called the “proclamation of reason as h.[ermeneutical]
norm.” In other words: the Catholic teaching office has been replaced
over time in Protestant circles by reason and a reification of what is “sci-
entific’ —the exact nature of which is disputed. This has taken various
individual forms. For Harnack and Gunkel, e.g., history acquires the
character of a norm alongside of Scripture.'’ In extreme cases historical
interest has caused the “abiding normative sense of Scripture for all
times” to be overlooked"* or the normativity of Scripture to be entirely
rejected.'> “Scientific thought” is a similar authority that can confer rel-
evance to the present on biblical expressions—or deny them this rele-
vance. Thus W. R. Harper, the head of the Chicago school at the
beginning of the twentieth century, felt himself obligated to two author-
168 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

ities: #1) Scripture, and #2) “scientific investigation.”'* Occasionally the

concept of “scientific thought” is expanded or modified by appeal to the
“modern consciousness,” “consciousness of truth;’'® “historical rea-
son,”? or the like. These establish the frame of reference within which
biblical statements are made to fit. U. Wilckens illustrates this approach
in the following formulation: “‘A scientifically responsible interpretation
of the Bible can be claimed only for that investigation of the biblical
texts which [works] under methodologically consistent application of
historical reason.” It is evident that this “modern consciousness” occa-
sionally combines with moral categories. Two examples along this line
are Shailer Mathews and Rudolf Bultmann. Mathews accords “equal
respect” to both the “‘sanctity” of the Bible and “intellectual integrity.”!
Such an interpretation, therefore, is again responsible to two authorities.
Bultmann places no less emphasis on the moral components of this
responsibility. He sees himself bound to a “command of veracity which
mandates that I hold nothing to be true that stands in contradiction to
truths that are the factual presupposition of my . . . understanding of the
world’’” Veracity and modern understanding of the world are here eth-
ical and intellectual presuppositions that combine to form a second
authority alongside the Scripture. This authority is acknowledged even
in very moderate forms of critical theology. An example would be H. E.
Weber, who states that interpretation of Scripture occurs “when there is
informed application of the assured results of historical-critical investi-
gation of the Bible:’”
3. We said earlier that even in more recent Protestant theology a
second authority alongside of Scripture has emerged. We now need to
mention a second and contrary development related to this.
Not all talk of reason amounts to the establishing of a second
authority alongside of Scripture. E.g., Wiclif and Luther appealed to
“scriptura vel ratio” (“Scripture or reason”) in the conviction that both
are ultimately identical.” As the Reformation progressed Luther clearly
placed Scripture over reason. Its authority is unique and incomparable;
it is the final norm: “The first principles of Christians, then, should be
 THE AUTHORITY OF SCRIPTURE @ 169

nothing other than the divine words.”?> Like Bengel later on, Luther
favored the Bible in the dispute between secular historians and
Scripture.** For Francke’s or Bengel’s scholarly Pietism there is
absolutely no question that Holy Scripture comprises the highest, sole,
and unconditionally valid authority.” Pietism still champions this view
today.** Even moderately critical biblicists like H. E. Weber battled
against the “modern world-view” becoming normative alongside of
Scripture.” Karl Barth went so far as to call for “subjection to the
Bible?”
One cannot say that the debate over Scripture’s authority, or the
norms that inform the interpreter, has arrived at its destination or is over.
The question remains open. On the one side are those who maintain that
we cannot undo post-Enlightenment developments: we must rather sub-
ject ourselves to historical criticism.*' On the other side are those who
see things in fiux and tend to affirm the uniqueness of biblical author-
ity. To this latter group belongs, e.g., E. H. Amberg, who states—his
purview limited, it is true, to the time prior to World War I—that “the
problem of the authority of Scripture has given dogmatics no rest.’
With respect to this problem dogmatics has yet to find rest right down
to the present.
We will now consider a few possible ways of furnishing a basis for
the authority of Scripture.

POSSIBLE BASES FOR THE AUTHORITY OF SCRIPTURE

1. Certain attributes of Scripture have often been adduced as

grounds for its authority. This was already the case with Josephus as he
defended the Jews’ sacred writings over against those of other peoples.
He appealed, e.g., to the absence of contradiction and the gift of
prophecy in the Old Testament.’
A further example would be Melanchthon’s testimonia. Miracles,
the antiquity of Scripture, its superiority to pagan teaching, the inner
witness of the Spirit, the martyrs, the preservation of the church, and the
170 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

punishing of the enemies of the Gospel establish the authority of

Scripture.** Still more comprehensive is the catalog of arguments in M.
Flacius. He sees all the following as speaking in favor of the authority
of Scripture: the divine author, the apostles and prophets, miracles and
attesting signs, antiquity, simplicity, freedom from contradictions, rea-
sonableness, confirmation through history (e.g., the triumph of the
Reformation), fulfillment of promises, the grim end met by infidels and
apostates, and the inner witness of the Spirit.** Protestant Scholasticism
follows this line in using similar criteria.*°
These arguments should not be facilely rejected. Some of them,
e.g., the connection of promise and fulfillment, cannot be attested in any
similar manner in all of world literature, whether judged from the stand-
point of quantity, or quality, or both. Still, others are less certain, among
them age, miracles, lack of contradiction, and so on, and even prophecy.
In principle these can also be found elsewhere, even among false
prophets. Consequently, they may be prized as significant indicators, but
not built upon as sure foundations.
2. Some appeal to the “powerful redemptive effect” of Scripture.”
Here the focus is on how Scripture leads to faith, gives assurance of sal-
vation, and in general empowers the community whose trust is in Jesus
Christ. This argument is meaningful to the extent that it sheds light on
the factual authority of Scripture in its practical manifestation. But again
it must be said: effects can be interpreted in various ways. The justifi-
cation for Scripture’s authority cannot be decided in this fashion.
3. From the opposite direction come those who appeal to the
church as the origin of Scripture. Lutz argues for this view along two
lines. On the one hand he maintains that Scripture must be explained by
Scripture “because it is God’s word.” On the other hand he states that
“the Scripture did not form the church; rather the latter existed prior to
Scripture.” Lutz’s second statement is put even more sharply by
Reinhold Seeberg, who poses the question: “Who would ever think of
reading this book [i.e., the Bible] devotionally if its authority had not
been transmitted to him by the Christian community?” From here it is
 THE AUTHORITY OF SCRIPTURE @ 171

only a short step to the Catholic conception that all dealings with the
Bible whatsoever are governed by the Spirit-led teaching office of the
church.“ In that case it is, in fact, the fellowship of believers that guar-
antees the Bible’s authority. That is, the Bible’s authority becomes
derivative, even if not intentionally.
This view that appeals to the church as the basis for Scripture’s
authority exists in a slightly different form among those who derive the
Bible from the productivity of faith. James Barr argues in this direction;
typically, he voices praise of the Catholic conception.*!
4. The attempt has been made repeatedly to employ Christian
experience as a basis for the authority of Scripture. This undertaking can
be traced at various levels and in different schools of thought. According
to D. F. Strauss, e.g., it is a Protestant principle “not to permit oneself
to believe anything in advance, but rather to believe only that which one
experiences personally within’? Formulated positively: what one expe-
riences personally within is trustworthy and receives normative valid-
ity. K. Girgensohn in his outline of dogmatics places “Christian
experience” next to Holy Scripture and church confession as a source of
dogmatics.* We find similar moves among existential interpreters. Thus
Trillhaas states that the Protestant faith rests “on contemporary
encounter with the word.” To this encounter “belongs on the one hand
the dynamic individual whom the word confronts, and [on the other] the
dynamic ‘particular’ word, the ‘text’ which touches us, as it is released
from all connections except for the solely important one: the contem-
poraneity in time with me myself?** The mystery of this “dynamic”
decides, therefore, what becomes binding word for me. With respect to
what this dynamic leaves no room for, or where it is simply inadequate,
there can be no talk of either bewilderment or scriptural authority. The
outcome of all this is that the person must become the foundation of the
authority of Scripture.** Now it is true that experience is valuable—as a
witness to the authority of Scripture. But it is no less true that it is
grandly unsuited to serve as this authority’s foundation.
5. Can Scripture’s material content (Sachgehalt) serve as the
172 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

ground for its authority? W. Elert has argued for this.** In his view “only
the material content of Scripture” can “make it authoritative for us” (p.
170). He believes that in this move he emulates Luther. In fact, a num-
ber of Luther scholars say that Luther, in contrast to biblicism, under-
stood the authority of Scripture in “material” and not “formal” terms.”
What does this mean? It is not the Bible as such, as a book, primary
source, or the like, that possesses authority, but rather its content, which
overwhelms us and which we acknowledge as valid. Such an approach,
however, presupposes that man is capable of recognizing and deferring
to authoritative content as such. The approach thus rests on the prior
knowledge and competence of man. It differs from an approach based
on “experience” or “practical knowledge” in that it is more intellectu-
ally and argumentatively oriented.** The nature of this material content
of which Elert speaks comes to the fore most sharply when there is need
to bring the truth of Scripture and the truth of reason together. Thus, e.g.,
for Mosheim sin became irrationality; he attempted to lead persons to
faith through proofs and reasons.’ We said earlier that Mosheim is an
extreme example. But he indicates the direction in which a “material”
basis for scriptural authority leads. As important as the rational com-
prehension of Scripture’s content is, just so little can the confirmation
of this content through man serve to ground Scripture’s authority.
Reason is always at war. It cannot transmit the certainty that befits a
genuine authority.
6. Basing the authority of Scripture on its divine initiator is a deci-
sive step beyond the foundations explored thus far. Here Calvin comes
first of all to mind. “The decisive ground for the authority of Scripture”
is for him “that it is God who speaks there” (“Summa scripturae proba-
tio a Dei loquentis persona sumitur’’).°° Here it is no longer necessary to
make the authority of Scripture depend on man. This authority rather
rests in something extrinsic to us (extra nos) which can furnish certainty.
Calvin was not the only one to argue along this line. We find sim-
ilar reflections much earlier in Tertullian.‘' Reformed and Lutheran
Scholasticism follow the same path. Calov calls Scripture the “very
 THE AUTHORITY OF SCRIPTURE @ 173

word of God” (“ipsissimum Dei verbum’’) and infers its authority from
that fact.*? For Gerhard and Hafenreffer the Scripture is a “letter from
heaven” (“epistola coelestis’’).** From then on the analogy of a divine
epistle remains an important element in establishing Scripture’s author-
ity; this may be seen in Spener and Bengel, among others.°° In the hey-
day of Protestant Scholasticism the term auctoritas causativa was used,
meaning the authority that is rooted in God who initiates and sustains
it.°° We could point to parallel statements from Catholic theologians.”
It makes no essential difference* if one speaks generally of the
Divine Initiator/Author, or draws more particularly on inspiration as a
basis. When, e.g., Dannhauer writes: “auctoritatem habet a theopneu-
sei’ (“[Scripture] derives authority from theopneustos [divine inspira-
tion]”),*° then he is saying that God speaks in the Bible, and this
occurrence confers authority on the Bible.
Yet where do we get our knowledge that God is the originator of
Scripture? To pose this simple question is at the same time to put a fin-
ger on a weak point of the argumentation just above. It is striking that
none other than Calvin draws very strongly “‘on the hidden witness of
the Spirit” (“testimonium spiritus sancti internum’’).® “The same Spirit,
therefore, who spoke by the mouth of the prophets must pierce our
hearts and makes us aware that they faithfully and accurately conveyed
what God entrusted to them” (Inst I, 7, 4). But isn’t this again to make
man—not the natural, but the regenerate, yet still man—into the attest-
ing authority of revelation’s authority? Calvin and his successors largely
neutralized this objection with a second line of argument that took the
self-attesting quality of the Bible as its starting point. “Holy Scripture
possesses its confirmation within itself, and its authority is not to be
based on rational deductions but rather asserts itself by means of the
Holy Spirit;’ says the Institutes (I, 7, 5).°' This second line of argument
frees Scripture from all human certification (“it would be a perverse
starting point to want to urge the sure trustworthiness of the Bible on
someone through disputation,” I, 7, 4) and instead binds the Spirit’s wit-
ness to the dynamic, transforming power of Scripture.”
174 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

7. In fact we cannot derive from either the “witness” of a spiritual

person or from a pious-rational a priori that God is the originator of
Scripture. We can only derive this from Scripture itself. So we come
finally to the basis for scriptural authority in revelation itself.

THE BASIS OF THE AUTHORITY OF SCRIPTURE

IN REVELATION
Once more, then, we begin here with revelation itself. We do this not in
isolation but in agreement with others who share the same conviction:
“The authority of the Bible must . . . find its justification in the Bible
itself’? We must “take our stand on the ground of the objective revela-
tion of God.’* Precisely here Luther’s thesis must prove itself; he held
that Scripture by itself is the ultimate source of certainty as “it proves,
judges and illumines the words of all” (omnium omnia probens).®
1. In this regard Jesus’ handling of the Old Testament is of central
importance.® This handling is described by many as critical. Abraham
claims that Jesus broke the Law; to an extent he uttered a no to the Old
Testament. As a whole, the New Testament shows only the “traditional
Jewish respect” for the Old Testament, nothing more.” Barr champions
the same position.** Somewhat more cautious is P. Stuhlmacher,® who,
however, likewise can speak of a “criticizing giant step” that Jesus took
“beyond the wording of the Old Testament command.” The passages,
however, that are supposed to typify Jesus’ “critique” do not yield this
picture. Mark 10:1ff./Matthew 19:1ff. are neither a break with the Law
nor an “objection to Moses,” but rather messianic unfolding of the orig-
inal will of God. This will as expressed in Deuteronomy 24 is still cir-
cumscribed by its redemptive-pedagogical intent (see Gal 3:24); its full
obligatory impact is made clear to man with the Messiah’s advent.” In
Mark 7:1ff./Matthew 15:1ff. Jesus does not oppose the Mosaic Torah
but rather the Halacha (legal traditions) of the‘Pharisees. Still less can
the Sermon on the Mount be cited to show an alleged critique of the Old
Testament by Jesus. His messianic-divine “But I say to you” assumes as
 THE AUTHORITY OF SCRIPTURE @ 175

its basis and starting point nothing other than the Mosaic Law. And once
more Jesus unfolds the true will of God, which came to expression in
the Old Testament only partially and in preparatory fashion (Gal 3:24),
and presents it in its full compass (cf. Mt 5:17). Unfolding and applica-
tion, therefore, not “antithesis,” describe Jesus’ relation to the so-called
Old Testament.”
It is characteristic that Abraham, in order to justify his position at
all, must represent Jesus as speaking ad hominem in John 10:35.% The
overall context of the Gospels teaches us something different. For Jesus,
as for his Jewish discussion partners, Scripture was the last court of
appeal. Therefore, and only therefore, Jesus argued many times based
on Scripture. “Have you not read?” “You know the commandments . . -”
“What do you think about the Christ?” “If you believed Moses, you
would believe me.’ “Is it not written .. . ?” These and similar turns of
phrase are typical in discussion settings (cf. Mt 12:3ff.; Mk 10:19; Mt
22:42; Jn 5:46; 10:34). A lawbreaker could never have posed the ques-
tion, “Which one of you can convict me of sin?” (Jn 8:46). Even the
rankest chicanery would not have allowed the disciples of the Pharisees
to say to a scofflaw rabbi: “You teach the way of God rightly” (Mt
22:16). Jesus’ words should be taken seriously: “Do not think that I have
come to set aside [katalusai] the Law or the Prophets” (Mt 5:17). This
comports well with John 10:35: “The Scripture cannot be broken”
(luthénai). Jesus trusts the power of every letter of Scripture to be ful-
filled, right down to the smallest part of the tiniest Hebrew letter (Mt
5:18). Genesis 2:24 and Exodus 3:6 are interpreted by him in a manner
that presupposes literal and historical validity (Mt 19:4ff.; 22:31f.).
Enough examples: there can just be no doubt that in Jesus’ eyes the Holy
Scriptures were accorded an incomparable authority. Anyone who finds
“criticism” of the Old Testament by Jesus must turn things upside down
to do so.
How can this authority be delineated more precisely? In Scripture
the Creator and Father speaks (Mt 19:4f.; Jn 10:34ff.). His will is oblig-
atory for Jesus and his disciples (Lk 24:44ff.). Moses and the prophets
176 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

are mediators but not the originators of the Holy Scriptures (Jn 5:37ff.;
6:32f.). The Father illuminated the human authors by his Spirit (Mt
22:43). It is the Father who wills the fulfillment of the Scriptures (Mt
5:17; 26:39, 56), who has placed the power for fulfillment within it (Mt
5:18), and who opposes every human reduction or alteration of his will
(Mt 5:19f.). Every human Halacha (oral legal tradition) and interpreta-
tion must defer to the clear wording of Scripture (Mk 7:9ff.). The true
content of Scripture, however, is unfolded by Jesus as the Messiah and
Son of God, who is even “Lord of the Sabbath” (Mk 2:28).
Certainly: Jesus’ authority as the living Son of God is a higher
authority than that of Scripture. To that extent it is Christologically jus-
tified that we see the fullness first of the New Testament and then read
the Old in light of the New. Yet it is still the case that precisely this
Messiah and Son of God attests to the reliability of the Scripture and
gives this Scripture to us so that we might orient ourselves by what it
says.” In that his statements and finally the entire Gospel of his words
and deeds become Scripture® and “Scripture” thereby reaches its
entirety, he encounters us today in it in trustworthy fashion. The living
Christ, like the Father, has bound himself to the word of revelation and
thereby makes good the promise of John 16:13 and Luke 10:16. This
makes a well-known statement from Reformation times exegetically
untenable: “If however the opponents press Scripture over against
Christ, then we press Christ over against Scripture:’” Only as a paradox
of the impossible is the statement meaningful. For Jesus’ praxis and doc-
trine do not permit us to pit Scripture and Christ against each other as
opposites. On the contrary, Scripture is the gift and word of the cruci-
fied and exalted Christ who still makes people his disciples.
Biblical revelation’s unique authority consists in its normative
transmission of the word of the triune God. In any case, that is the claim
that revelation itself makes. No other document, occurrence, or author-
ity can occupy a position at its side. .
2. What we have observed with respect to Jesus applies also to the
rest of the New Testament. Characteristically, the two phrases “God
 THE AUTHORITY OF SCRIPTURE @ 177

says” and “Scripture says” are interchangeable with each other (cf. Ro
9:15, 17).* God himself is the originator of Scripturé and speaks in
Scripture to us. It is he who “in various ways spoke through the
prophets.” It is he who “has spoken to us in these last days through his
Son” (Heb 1:1f.). The epistle to the Hebrews, by placing the prophets
and the Son, former times and the present, alongside each other, points
to the basic principle of the Christian Bible, the principle that binds Old
and New Testament together and unites them into a new unity. This
unity is rooted in the one person who here makes his word known: God.
Because he addresses us in Scripture, creating a living encounter, the for-
mula “Scripture says” can justifiably be used (cf. Ro 4:3; Gal 4:30; 1Ti
5:18). The Scriptures of the so-called Old Testament and the words of
the Lord Jesus are ultimate authorities and the foundation for claims and
argument in the writings of Paul, Peter, John, and Hebrews (cf. 1Co
TAMA oOOL 10: 14; re 17162 2:21> 4:14. 0Pe 1:1 6ff.: [Jn 1: 1fE: 3:5,
12, 17; Heb 1:5ff.; 2:1ff.; 3:1ff.; etc.).” Scripture comes about at God’s
prompting. True, it is men who write, but they speak “from God” (apo
theou) and are “moved by the Holy Spirit” (2Ti 3:16; 2Pe 1:21). Already
in 2 Peter 1:12—15* and 2 Peter 3:15*' we can see that Petrine and
Pauline doctrinal traditions themselves are regarded as Scripture. They
accordingly partake of the authority of God-effected revelation.
3. Let us summarize the statements of revelation concerning the
authority of Scripture. Our starting point has been that the final basis of
this authority can only come about through biblical revelation itself.
Revelation claims to have issued forth from God’s Spirit. This rev-
elation, in the context furnished by both Old and New Testaments, is
God’s address to us. Whoever hears it is hearing first of all not the
human authors and witnesses to faith but rather the triune God.
Nowhere else can such a trustworthy and adequate message from this
God be found. As unique speech from God, it has a unique, incompa-
rable authority. God has bound himself to this word. He has determined
that it is the location where he will encounter us. He will vindicate and
178 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

fulfill this word in every way. The authority of Scripture is, fundamen-
tally, the personal authority of the God who enccunters us there.
It is just as possible to reject this claim of revelation as it is to
affirm it. To affirm it is likely to call forth the objections that have
echoed repeatedly since 1525 to protest a theology of sola scriptura: the
Bible is being made a paper pope; “word idolaters,” “Biblicists,”
“Scripturalists,’ “word-lackeys” are allegedly pursuing their evil ends.*
In modern times philosophical idealism’s disdain for the book—in con-
trast to the “living spirit”—-may also play a role. Thus Wellhausen
thought that the lamentable aspect of Josiah’s reform was that “he based
it on a book” (p. 135). Similarly, James Barr despises every “scriptural
religion” (pp. 10ff.). For Wellhausen it is a negative outcome of Israelite
history that “the people of the sacred word” were changed “into a peo-
ple of the sacred writing’’*? Contra Wellhausen, however, Scripture is liv-
ing word as well as “sacred word.” It cannot be cast aside by men as a
dead letter; it rather remains a means of encounter, a dynamic instru-
ment of God in his search for persons. Therefore, it is important that we
recognize its authority as the personal authority of the God who encoun-
ters us in it.

EXTENT AND CONSEQUENCES OF THE

AUTHORITY OF SCRIPTURE

SCRIPTURE AS SOLE NORMA NORMANS

(NORMATIVE STANDARD)

It has become clear that enscripturated revelation according to its own

claims is the highest and ultimate authority, the highest and only nor-
mative standard for the fellowship of Jesus Christ. In other words: it is
our sole norma normans (normative standard).
The Formula of Concord (1577) was right, therefore, in affirming:
“Credimus, confitemur et docemus unicam regulam et normam, secun-
dum quam omnia dogmata omnesque doctores aestimari et iudicari
oporteat, nullam omnino aliam esse quam prophetica et apostolica
 THE AUTHORITY OF SCRIPTURE @ 179

scripta cum Veteris tum Novi Testamenti” (“We believe, confess, and
teach that the only rule and norm according to which all doctrines and
all church teachers ought to be evaluated and judged is nothing other
than the prophetic and apostolic writings of the Old and New
Testament’).** Reformed confessions say nothing different. At this
point, according to O. Weber, there are “no differences among
Protestants.’*> Weber continues, “It is clear enough that here every other
norm outside of Scripture is excluded. The Protestant church exists only
where this exclusivity of the biblical witness reigns.’**
A second authority, one in competition with the Bible or even
restricting it, is accordingly excluded. This applies, e.g., to reason as it
came to be lifted up as the rule for interpretation during the
Enlightenment. According to Joh. Franz Buddeus, revelation could con-
tain nothing that went against the doctrines of natural theology. Thus for
him “reason is the authority in the light of which the truths of revelation
must prove themselves.’*’ The same move inevitably comes about in the
later “historical-critically oriented scientific” theology that thinks it “is
the ultimate judge in the battle over the meaning of Scripture:’** The pro-
file of a second authority comes into sharp focus in G. Ebeling’s semi-
nal article of 1950. He maintains that we are “obligated” “to do theology
and interpret Scripture with the means, and in light of the problems, of
modernity.’ Essential here is the “understanding of reality” that “the
spirit of the modern age has adopted.” The church “is not permitted” to
“tamper with” this.*° That is, a second authority in the form of histori-
cal-critical science is itself untouchable, but it “permits” itself and its
intellectual presuppositions to place restrictions on the Bible and “tam-
per with” it. Like many others, E. B. Redlich also comes to the result:
“The sound conclusions of modern science must be accepted and recog-
nised?’”° We refrain from reciting further examples so as not to repeat
what we have already said in part two of this chapter (“Normative
Authorities Along with Scripture”). It should only be underscored that
in erecting a second authority there is the tendency to abandon the
180 e BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

norma normans and the authority of Scripture. Therefore we must abide

by the principle that biblical revelation is “sole cule and standard.”

OUR OBEDIENCE AS THE GOAL OF SCRIPTURE

If we take it seriously that God has made Scripture the locus of

encounter with him, and that Scripture’s authority is rooted in the per-
sonal authority of the God who speaks, then an intellectualized
acknowledgment of Scripture will not suffice. The goal of Scripture lies
rather in our obedience. Just as Paul in his oral proclamation wished to
establish the “obedience of faith’ (Ro 1:5; 10:3), indeed as Christ him-
self seeks the obedience of the nations (Ro 15:18), so does enscrip-
turated revelation seek the comprehensive trust and obedience of
persons who are internally vanquished. True, this internal vanquished
state comes, as Ricoeur has nicely put it, through a “nonviolent appeal’”!
True as well that in this state objections, doubts, and even complaints
against God may have their place. To that extent revelation has the char-
acter of a conversation. Still: one can only speak of an actual “author-
ity” of Scripture when from it flow obedience and grateful service to
God.
To that extent scriptural authority and obedience are integrally
linked. Dogmaticians of bygone years saw that clearly. Especially
instructive in this respect are Calvin’s comments. He emphasizes that
“the knowledge of God does not rest on cold thoughts. Such knowledge
rather gives rise to the veneration he deserves.” The internally van-
quished hearer of revelation ascertains “with full certainty that Holy
Scripture, even if by human agency, has come to us from God’s own
mouth. In Scripture we see God himself standing before us, contempo-
rary with us. We do not seek proofs or probabilities upon which we
might rest our judgment, but we subordinate our judgment and our
thinking to an incontrovertibly certain fact: It was practical obedience,
comprehensive and responsive to God’s word, that animated not only
Protestant orthodoxy but also the champions of scholarly Pietism. They
 THE AUTHORITY OF SCRIPTURE @ 181

saw points at which Scripture was subject to attack just as clearly as the
approaching rationalism did. But because the authority that works
through Scripture led them to obedience and grateful confession, the
way they handled Scripture at its vulnerable points was entirely differ-
ent. This comes out sharply in, e.g., Bengel when he would “rather do
violence to secular history” than to Scripture in the event that “Scripture
and history” contradict. This is not a case of superficial sacrificium
intellectus (sacrifice of intellect). For Bengel it is rather a matter of the
choice that Scripture generates between a praeiudicium auctoritatis pro-
priae (prejudice of one’s own authority) and a praeiudicium auctoritatis
alienae (prejudice of an alien authority, i.e., God’s authority). Here is
a stark either-or. From the point of view of authority a decision must be
reached wholly one way or the other.

THE PERSPICUITY OF SCRIPTURE

The authority of Scripture cannot be maintained apart from reflection

on its perspicuity. This matter too was comprehensively addressed in the
age of the Reformation and Protestant Scholasticism. It is well known
that Luther advocated with special emphasis the thesis of Scripture’s
clarity (claritas scripturae).” Two aspects of this issue must be distin-
guished. On the one hand the issue involves the internal and the exter-
nal clarity of Scripture. The external, the understanding of the words, is
accessible to every person. The internal “‘is resident in the knowledge of
the heart” and is granted only by the Holy Spirit.°* On the other hand
the issue involves the comprehensibleness and unambiguousness of
Scripture that are available to every Christian. It is most of all K. Holl
who has brought out this second aspect. Without the “unambiguousness
of the Bible” it would not be possible for someone to conform himself
to it. Holl quotes Luther: “if however it is conceded that Scripture does
not insist on one simple sense, it becomes an utterly ineffective
weapon.””? That is the point at which Luther and Schlatter agree. The
insistence on the unambiguousness of Scripture is for Luther of a piece
182 e BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

with emphasis on the literal sense; he refers to “the holy writer and
speaker who is in heaven and on earth so that his words might have no
more than one basic meaning.” The authority of Scripture can, practi-
cally speaking, prevail only if every plain Christian is in a position to
gain a clear concept of Scripture’s content. Here of course the knowl-
edge of the languages is included as soon as questions arise concerning
the meaning of the original text.
Against Jesuits and Socinians, Protestant Scholasticism defended
the perspicuity of Scripture.'°' The former upheld the obscurity of
Scripture in the sense that it required the interpretation of the church to
give it clarity." Against this, Lutheran dogmaticians took the position
that the content of Scripture “‘is accessible to the understanding of every
single person.’'*? What about the undeniably difficult passages of
Scripture, however?'* Protestant Scholasticism answered first that
everything necessary for salvation is clear (Quenstedt: “in illis quae ad
salutem creditu sunt necessaria, clara est et perspicua” [“in those things
which are necessary to be believed for salvation, Scripture is clear and
perspicuous”’]).'°> Here it was possible to appeal, e.g., to Augustine.'”
The second answer was that difficult passages were to be explained with
reference to clear passages (“secundum analogiam fidei” [“according to
the analogy of faith’’]).'"” Here is where the Reformation interpretive
principle that Scripture must be explained by Scripture (“scriptura sui
ipsius interpres’’) proved itself.'°* Thomas Aquinas supported this view.'”
A third answer involved the attempt to explain the sense of obscure pas-
sages hermeneutically. Flacius thought that not God but man in his
blindness was at fault in obscure passages.'"° A modern example of this
approach is found in F. Pieper: difficult passages “serve to make us study
Scripture all the more zealously as God’s word, marveling worshipfully
at the exalted majesty of him whose hidden heavenly wisdom shows up
our spiritual ignorance, while in the bright and clear passages he points
us the way to eternal life” (p. 156f.). We should} however, exercise cau-
tion at this point. All too quickly our explanations become ecclesiasti-
cal rationalism or verge on speculation.
 THE AUTHORITY OF SCRIPTURE @ 183

It is more important to hark to the clarity of Scripture regarding

revelation itself. It speaks of a message that is accessible to every per-
son: “Now what Iam commanding you today is not too difficult for you
or beyond your reach. It is not up in heaven, so that you have to ask,
‘Who will ascend into heaven to get it and proclaim it to us so we may
obey it?’ Nor is it beyond the sea, so that you have to ask, ‘Who will
cross the sea to get it and proclaim it to us so we may obey it?’ No, the
word is very near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart so you may
obey it” (Dt 30:11—14 NIv). That Paul builds on this oracle (Ro 10:6ff.)
only underscores the weight of this Old Testament declaration. Micah
presupposes that God’s message is generally understandable and unam-
biguous (6:8). Jesus could repeatedly pose the question, “Have you not
read... ?” (Mt 12:3, 5; cf. 9:13; 24:14) only because he was convinced
of the clarity of Holy Scripture. He himself formulated his statements
in pedagogically reflected and easily remembered fashion in order to
assure that their content would be grasped and his words retained."
Where doubts arose regarding Jesus’ messiahship and the redemptive
messianic event, the early Christians referred to the Scripture (cf. Jn
5:39; Ac 17:11). To summarize: enscripturated revelation maintains that
it is accessible and sufficiently clear for every person to understand.
True, it links comprehensive understanding and existential transforma-
tion to the gift of the Holy Spirit. But philological understanding and
the essential content lie open to every person. The Christian community
itself requires no special class of people “in the know” who alone are
competent to open up Scripture’s meaning to the rest. Therefore, we
abide by the principle of the perspicuity of Scripture in the double sense
alluded to above.
The protest against the perspicuity of Scripture has traditionally
come from three quarters: from Gnosticism, from the champions of the
Catholic teaching office, and from historical-critical theologians. The
last-named group is abundantly aware that the principle “sacra scriptura
sui ipsius interpres” (Sacred Scripture is its own interpreter) is only pos-
184 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

sible if (verbal) inspiration is presupposed.'” But this will be taken up

more fully later.

SCRIPTURE SUFFICES FOR SALVATION

The authority of the Bible can be seriously maintained only if it is ade-
quate for salvation. If other revelations were necessary to lead us into
fellowship with God, then Scripture would have only relative authority.
In no case could it then be regarded as norma normans (normative
standard).
It is clear that especially the churches of the Reformation took
keen interest in the matter of so-called sufficienta (sufficiency). They
championed, after all, the motto sola scriptura. At the center of their
concern stood the opposite affirmation, the principle of tradition of
Tridentine Catholicism. The Roman church at the Council of Trent
affirmed its commitment to treat Scripture and church tradition “pari
pietatis affectu et reverentia” (“with an equal affection of piety and rev-
erence’’).''? There are, to be sure, precedents for this, such as Vincent of
Lérins (d. fifth century).''* But we also find lines of development of a
quite different nature. Thus, e.g., Tertullian affirms the sufficiency of
Scripture (“‘sufficit sibi”).""’ So then, the Council of Trent marked the
high point of the “tradition principle”; the counterpart to this was the
“Scripture principle” of Protestant Scholasticism, the rejection of
according extrabiblical tradition such lofty status.'"*
Protestant thinkers were conscious of the limits imposed on this
position by the Scripture’s central purpose. It sufficed for salvation. But
it obviously possessed gaps that do not deal so directly with salvation.
Calvin spoke of Scripture as a “school of the Holy Spirit, in which noth-
ing is left out that is necessary and useful to know, and also nothing
taught but what is expedient to know.’'” The “gaps” (lacunae) of
Scripture extend in two directions: #1) Scripture is no “encyclopedia of
general human knowledge” (Pieper, p. 151), and #2) “Scripture also
does not reveal all spiritual matters” (ibid., p. 152).
 THE AUTHORITY OF SCRIPTURE @ 185

Once again we inquire concerning the statements of revelation

itself. Scripture is given to us “for deliverance” (sotéria, 2Ti 3:16). It
serves the purpose of making us “people of God” (2Ti 3:16). It is light
that shows us how to find God and then how to live in fellowship with
him (Ps 119:105; 2Pe 1:19). Jesus himself is light, way, truth, and life,
so that we may come to the Father through him (Jn 14:6). The Word is
meant to bring us to an eschatological destination (Heb 2:1ff.). The
divine Word is to be preserved as a witness for the world and as an
essential binding tie to God till he one day judges the world (Rev 3:8ff.;
13:10; 14:12). In fact, everything centers around the concept “‘deliver-
ance,” “salvation” (sotéria). Holy Scripture is, then, according to its own
statements a book with an expressed purpose. But that is not all:
Hebrews 1:1ff. makes it clear that subsequent to the first advent of the
Son—of Jesus and his apostles—no new revelation is to be expected.
But that means that, already by that time, everything necessary for sal-
vation stood revealed. The sufficient amount and scope of the revelation
passed along to us in the Bible (see above) has its counterpart in the
completion of revelation in the apostolic age. To embrace post- or extra-
biblical traditions as essential supplements to Scripture would amount
to a correction of salvation history.
Positively, we should now say that the original text of Scripture is
preserved in ample measure. If the text were hopelessly corrupt, then its
authority would also be undermined. Dogmaticians in previous eras
realized this, asserting more than proving the text’s good condition."
Today we can calmly state that the Bible is the most soundly attested
book of antiquity. The Dead Sea Scrolls, e.g., as a whole demonstrate
the stability of the Old Testament text. True, evaluation of the Septuagint
is still an open problem. Yet the New Testament, in spite of its piecemeal
preservation among more than six thousand handwritten documents, has
turned out to be substantially unaltered from its original form.'”
O. Weber rightly points out that there is also a “Protestant analogy
to the (Roman Catholic) tradition principle.’ He discovers such a prin-
ciple in Schleiermacher, who defined the church based on the “common
186 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

spirit” that prevails within it, a spirit which finds “the same faith” in the
Scripture as in the church. Here “the validity of Scripture” is made
“dependent on faith’? Actually, in Schleiermacher the danger arises
that the understanding of Scripture will become dependent on another
entity, namely, the church, or the faith of the church. In that case, how-
ever, “there can finally be no more talk of the sufficiency of Scripture.”!”!
Beyond Weber’s example, Scripture’s sufficiency is also called in ques-
tion where Scripture is subordinated to historical relativization or taken
up as a self-contradictory witness to faith. In Girgensohn’s experience,
“for many the transition to radical historical contemplation of Scripture
means at the same time the hopeless breakdown of any faith in the
authority of Scripture:”'? This is relevant to the issue of Scripture’s suf-
ficiency in that Scripture alone no longer holds the answer to the ques-
tion of what is required for the salvation of mankind. Rather, this answer
must be found with the help of extrabiblical information. For this rea-
son one should be cautious of speaking disparagingly of “the Bible’s
lowly form.’'*? Others then too quickly become “lords” over this “lowly
form.” Where this leads can be seen, e.g., in the recent remarks of E.
Grdsser. He “refuses to tolerate a different governance” for modern-his-
torical theology “than that which inheres in its own methodological
principles. . . ?’ An understanding of the Bible is “absolutely impossible
without content criticism [Sachkritik]?’'* Here, as in F. C. Baur, “the
autonomy of the (human) subject’’’?> has run its course. Here too there
can simply be no more talk of a sufficiency of Scripture.
Against all these attempts to dissolve the sufficiency of Scripture
in the sense of its determinative purpose, revelation itself maintains that
it transmits to us all that is necessary for salvation. Its sufficiency is an
indispensable consequence of its authority.
 CHAPTER TEN

The Unity of Scripture

fies the notion is widely prevalent that biblical revelation exhibits

no unity. Old and New Testament are said to be “everything but uni-
fied”’;' indeed, they “abound in contradictions.” This leads, on the one
hand, to the rejection of “attempts at harmonization” and to disparage-
ment of the “unfruitfulness” of such attempts.’ On the other hand some
go so far as to recommend a method of systematic dissent.* Rejection of
Scripture’s unity has made deep inroads as well into “positive” or “bib-
licistic” circles.° In this climate, anyone who advocates the unity of
Scripture falls under suspicion of impermissible harmonization.
It was not always like this. The first ones to attack Scripture’s unity,
as far as we know, sallied forth from Gnosticism. Thus the Valentinian
Ptolemy (second century A.D.) saw contradictions between the Sermon
on the Mount and the Pentateuch.® Yet it was not until the
Enlightenment, and in the years since, that the conviction of Scripture’s
unity was lost among many in Christian circles.’

SURVEY OF CHURCH HISTORY

Let us once more sketch historical development in concise fashion:
Jewish interpreters of the first century A.D. were convinced of the
unity of Scripture. Josephus made this a point of apologetic emphasis.’
188 e@ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

For Philo it was a correlate of “the strictest verbal inspiration” and the
multiple sense of every Scripture passage.’
The authors of the early church—with the exception of the
Gnostics!—followed in the train of Jewish interpreters at this point."
According to Campenhausen, Justin Martyr presupposed the “seamless
unity and freedom from contradiction of the divinely inspired Holy
Scripture” (p. 120). Both Campenhausen and Chmiel quote from the
Dialog with Trypho (65,2): “I am entirely convinced that no Scripture
can contradict another, and I would admit rather that I do not understand
what it says:”'' The situation is no different in Irenaeus, Tertullian, and
Origen. “The indestructible unity and coherence of the Scriptures of the
Old and New Testaments is the foundational biblical doctrine for
Tertullian as for all the church fathers since Irenaeus in the battle
against the Gnostics.” Scripture’s unity “was first seriously called in
question with the advent of modern historical criticism.”'’? Augustine
defended the Gospels determinedly against the (pagan, Jewish, and
heretical) objection that they contradict each other. In his De consensu
evangelistarum (On the Agreement of the Gospel Writers) he calls this
objection “the showpiece of their empty vanity” (1,7,10)."
Luther upheld the idea of Scripture’s unity. His interpretive rule
“was Christum treibet” (“what promotes Christ’) is not a critical-his-
torical principle of elimination but rather, as Scheel emphasizes, a reli-
gious principle of interpretation.'* Kraus levels the charge against Calvin
that he “was still bound and transfixed by a doctrinal mode of thinking
based on the unity and harmony of Scripture?’ The more that the
Reformation took sola scriptura as its basis, the stronger its interest in
the unity of Scripture had to be. That can be seen readily in Flacius and
his Protestant Scholastic successors.'* In this connection we note that
already in Flacius the comparison between Scripture and an organism
crops up, a comparison that would later be very important for Pietist
interpreters.” For Bengel, Scripture is a perfect corpus.'®
A break with the conception held earlier comes about with the
Enlightenment. For Spinoza the Bible has lost its unity. It is contradic-
 THE UNITY OF SCRIPTURE @ 189

tory, as can be seen e.g., from the opposition between Paul in Romans
and James.'? In subsequent decades historical criticism dissolves the
unity of Scripture more and more.” This takes place, however, amid pas-
sionate battles. Thus Ernesti (1707-8 1) still disputes that Scripture con-
tains contradictions.”! Karl August Gottlieb Keil allows for
contradictions, yet in his book on hermeneutics establishes the princi-
ple that one must first attempt to resolve such contradictions.” By
today’s standards, then, Keil would be a “harmonizer”! Similar views
are found in Liicke.” The unity of Scripture was also a visceral concern
for salvation-historical theologians. In Hofmann we repeatedly
encounter the concept of a “unified whole’ In J. L. Samuel Lutz’s
Biblische Hermeneutik we read, “Hermeneutics must show precisely the
unity of the whole Bible and its interpretation’’> Older Lutheran dog-
maticians vehemently rejected the “modern hunt for differences.”
Someone like Philippi charged the Christian theologian with the “task
of harmonization,” Even such a critical proponent as W. Wrede raises
the question whether “the opposition to a dogmatically determined har-
monization” were not “itself a form of dogmatism?”
If one surveys Protestant theology in more recent times, there are
the following prominent currents that continue to insist on the unity of
Scripture: first, theologians who continue to be strongly influenced by
Lutheranism or Calvinism;”? next, Pietist®° and biblicistic theologians;?!
third, the wide spectrum of “evangelical” theology. From this third
group we encounter in renewed form the conception of Scripture as a
“coherent organism’*? along with the demand, “Our approach must be
harmonistic,’ because God does not contradict himself.** In addition
there is a fourth group, the proponents of “pneumatic exegesis.” Here
also the Scripture is conceived of as “‘a grand unified organism,” and
there is talk of an “inner unity of Scripture’** Here Girgensohn and
Procksch wish to link their work with Hofmann and “the great old
scholars of Wiirttemberg’”” Fifth, it should be noted that modern Old
Testament scholars emphasize the unity of Old Testament and New
190 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

Testament, even if they are thoroughly committed to the presence of

contradictions within this overall unified framework.”

THE REVELATORY STARTING POINT

Amid the welter of human opinions, secure ground is also in this mat-
ter only to be gained from going back to revelation itself.
We observe first of all that the New Testament is able to sum-
marize the entire enscripturated revelation of the old covenant under
the rubric “the Scripture” (hé graphé; cf. Jn 7:38; Ro 4:3; 1Ti 5:18).
Such summarization is only possible if a connection and unity
between the individual writings in question is presupposed. The same
applies to the summary formula “the Scriptures” (cf. Ro 1:2; 1Co
15:3f.). According to the gospel of John, Jesus himself spoke in the
same sense of “the Scripture” and “the Scriptures” (Jn 5:39; 10:35).
When the resurrected Christ in Luke’s gospel spoke of the fulfillment
“of everything . . . that is written in the Law of Moses, in the prophets,
and in the Psalms,’ and when he in addition “opened” the disciples’
understanding “to the Scriptures” (Lk 24:44f.; cf. 24:27), then it again
indicates the view that the (Old Testament) Scripture is a unity. But it
is also regarded as a unity in the apostolic tradition (paradosis). Acts
2:42 could otherwise never have been formulated. In the hour of mar-
tyrdom (Rev 3:10) the “word” (singular!) is an indissoluble unity (Rev
3:8); this already summarizes both the Old Testament and New
Testament Word. The course of enscripturation of this apostolic para-
dosis can already be glimpsed in, e.g., 2 Peter 3:15.°° Here it becomes
clear that the idea of Scripture’s unity is closely related to the idea of
its authority.*°
All in all we conclude that revelation of Old and New Testament
affirms the unity of the message it contains.
It should be immediately granted that there are further and varie-
gated assessments to be made here. We turn first, however, to the basis
of this unity.
 THE UNITY OF SCRIPTURE @ 191

THE BASIS OF THE UNITY OF SCRIPTURE

1. The unity of Scripture finds its most secure basis in the One who
ultimately brought it forth: God. More specifically, it is God the Holy
Spirit who permeates it and constitutes it as a unity (2Ti 3:16).*' In fact,
the case for contradictions in the Bible depends on making the human
witnesses to faith the primary authors of Scripture and supplanting the
Divine Author. The argument for such contradictions brings a contra-
diction into God himself—of whom, however, it’s rightly said, “Unity
is God’s characteristic feature?”
2. The unity of Scripture is further grounded in the fact that all the
books of the Bible summon to faith in one and the same God. The Father
of Jesus Christ is none other than the God of Abraham. The nations
receive no other God and no other Messiah than does Israel (cf. Ac
17:22ff.). Just as faith was reckoned to Abraham as righteousness, so it
is to us (Ro 3 and 4). In Christ the barrier between Israel as God’s cho-
sen people and the nations is broken down (Eph 2:14). Gentile believ-
ers are grafted into the olive tree of the fellowship of faith of the old
covenant (Ro 11:17ff.). Thus arose “the one holy Christian church” of
all times and races—and on the basis of a unified message from the
Bible. True, the unity of this fellowship is an article of faith. That is not
expressive, however, of its deficient reality but rather of its deficient vis-
ibility. Bengel spoke rightly of the Bible as a unified “inventory catalog
of the community of God’s people in Old and New Testament.”
In this connection Schlatter’s fetching remark comes to mind:
“The unity of Scripture in its outcome corresponds to the unity it pos-
sesses at its basis” (Dogma, p. 371). By that he means that study of the
Bible from any starting point leads into the entirety of Scripture. The
“church . . . came to the clear realization that a genuine attachment to
Scripture did not remain limited to one of its parts, just as deviation from
one of its parts could not fail to become deviation from many more parts
as well” (Dogma, pp. 371f.).** In other words, the community of believ-
192 e BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

ers owns the Bible as a unified plumb line—or it no longer owns any
plumb line at all.
3. Along with Scripture’s one ultimate source and one faith in this
one God, there is a third basis for the unity of Scripture: the unity of the
history created through God’s Word. His Word lays out the present cre-
ated order as the framework of history. As “the Word of God” Jesus is
coming again to usher the present order into the new creation (Rev
19:13). In Jesus Christ this history has its unity.** He is the turning point
of the times. In him time has its ‘fulfillment,’ and the “fullness” of time
makes its appearance (Mk 1:15; Gal 4:4). He encompasses all “that is
in heaven and on earth”; he repeats in his own person the history of
mankind (Eph 1:10). Thus in Jesus, who is himself God’s very “Word,”
all is summed up into one: creation, time and history, and the Word that
is the basis for all that is. On that basis we are justified in speaking of
the one salvation history. And the Word from which that history goes
forth we rightly regard as one.
4, In addition to the three preceding arguments for Scripture’s
unity, there is a fourth, perhaps somewhat negative in nature. It is, like
the others, contained in revelation itself. It runs: where the unity of
Scripture is lost, the means to fight against heresy are also lost. The New
Testament refers repeatedly to “sound” or “good” doctrine (e.g., 1Ti
1:10; 4:6; 2Ti 2:15; Tit 1:9; 2:1, 7f.). But if the New Testament were con-
tradictory, how would it be in a position to offer “sound doctrine”?
Without unity the Scripture can likewise no longer serve as “unica reg-
ula et norma” (unique rule and standard). Significantly, since the
Enlightenment there has continued to be church discipline, but basically
no longer any doctrinal discipline. E. Kasemann set forth the famous
claim that the New Testament is not the basis for the church’s unity but
rather for the diversity of its confessions and Christologies—because of
its own diversity and contradictoriness.** But if this diversity is actually
a sound inference from the New Testament, where then is the “true”
church to be found? Then all church orders and confessions as such are
correct in principle, and truth is relativized. Taken seriously,
 THE UNITY OF SCRIPTURE @ 193

Kasemann’s principle permits no more biblical distinguishing of the

spirits, no more distinction between heresy and sound doctrine. This
would be, however, to turn the New Testament on its head.”
Ext us summarize: the one God, and therefore the one faith, the
one salvation history, and the one binding doctrinal nexus are the basis
for the unity of Scripture. Anyone who, in opposition to seventeen cen-
turies of Christian conviction, denies the unity of Scripture must face the
question of how his faith as a whole comports with that of all these pre-
vious generations. “If Scripture is to help us to our destination, it may
not destroy its own word through contradictions and thereby be a source
of discord among us.”

UNITY AND THE PROGRESSIVE NATURE

OF REVELATION

It is nonetheless impossible to present the unity of Scripture as an

abstract doctrinal system. Scripture itself is, after all, not put together as
an arrangement of proof texts. It rather gives a step-by-step description
of God’s activity in a historical progression. At each stage God reveals
himself in the specific manner fitting for that time. We are dealing, then,
with a “progressive revelation.”
The concept “progressive revelation” is nonnegotiable because it
arises from revelation itself. Not until Jesus’ advent is the “full” inter-
pretation of the so-called Old Testament manifest (Mt 5:17). Not until
the apostles is the hidden truth proclaimed that “the Gentiles are heirs
together with Israel” (Eph 3:6 NIv). Not until Jesus is “all the fullness
of the Deity” present “in bodily form” (Col 2:9 NIv). Not until Christ’s
appearance is the deliverance revealed that the prophets announced (1 Pe
1:10ff.). Simultaneously, both the completion and the peak of God’s rev-
elation through history were realized when God “spoke to us in these last
days by the Son” (Heb 1:2).
Consciousness of progressive revelation remains acute every where
that salvation-historical thinking and interpretation prevails.” It should
194 e BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

not be supposed, however, that this progression is unilinear. Rather, God

awakens numerous witnesses with thoroughly diverse tasks in many
respective times. Indeed, one and the same witness could be called to
various ministries. Thus Jonah prophesied to Jereboam II (783-743
B.C.) the restoration of the Israelite kingdom, while he also moved the
Assyrians, Israel’s mortal enemies, to conversion by his call to repen-
tance, which meant finally the renewal of Assyrian might (cf. 2Ki
14:25ff.). At first glance much seems to be contradictory. Yet it all dove-
tails into a unity after careful attention to the historical interconnections
and the diverse workings of God. Knowledge of the progressive nature
of revelation must, therefore, be supplemented by knowledge of the
complexity of revelation.”
An example of this is furnished by H. E. Weber. Among the
“antitheses” that he thinks he finds in the Bible he cites, e.g., “Esther
and Mark or John, the genealogies and the Sermon on the Mount.”*' It
is, however, quite unclear why “antitheses” should be said to be present
here. Esther is an account of divine preservation. God’s providence
assures the survival of the people from whom redemption is to come.
Without the Jews’ survival, John 4:22 (“Salvation comes from the Jews’’)
would never have been uttered, for example. When Jesus assures the
continued existence of Israel (Mt 24:32ff.; also 23:39), what he says
relates even to the divine act of preservation reported in Esther 4:14. And
why should “the genealogies and the Sermon on the Mount” be antithe-
ses? The genealogies are signs of the connection of human history, of a
human race therefore that is invited to discipleship and eternal life in the
Sermon on the Mount. Further, the genealogies point to the survival of
Israel as it is preserved and led under God’s providence. And finally,
these genealogies integrate Jesus into mankind and uncover the fulfill-
ment of the promises given long before to David and Abraham (Mt 1:1).
At the same time, however, we must take full cognizance of the
complexity of these revelations. In Esther there is peace with the enemy
only by the sword (9:16, 22). In the New Testament there is eschato-
logical peace only for the one who dispenses with the sword where the
 THE UNITY OF SCRIPTURE @ 195

faith is concerned (Mt 26:52ff.; Heb 4:1ff.). The salvation-historical

epochs, therefore, are also varied, and revelation comports with this his-
torical variability. Anyone who proceeds here on the basis of precon-
ceived material criteria is most emphatically not interpreting historically
but is committing to an abstract doctrinal norm.*?
Observation of the progressiveness and complexity of revelation
compels us finally to a salvation-historical interpretation.

THE UNITY OF SCRIPTURE AND

SALVATION-HISTORICAL INTERPRETATION

Salvation-historical interpretation has a threefold advantage over other

interpretations: #1) it does the most justice to the historical structure of
revelation; #2) at the same time it embraces the fullness of revelation,
for history is always richer than an intellectualized systemization of his-
tory; and #3) it is best suited to express the unity of revelation in all its
challenging complexity.
The New Testament itself has a “salvation historical outlook.’ It
concentrates at the point where the New Testament understands itself as
the fulfillment of the Old Testament.** The salvation-historical concep-
tion is not extraneous to this; it cannot be dismissed or reinterpreted at
our discretion. Rather “the Christian Bible has a. . . conception of sal-
vation history as its abiding presupposition.’®> Justin, Irenaeus,
Tertullian, and others confer normative importance on salvation-histor-
ical exegesis in the ancient church.** For Ticonius, the creator of
Christendom’s first hermeneutical handbook, the salvation-historical
outlook numbers among the essential hermeneutical presuppositions.”
The theological-historical scheme constructed by Joachim of Fiore (ca.
1135-1202) assumed a salvation-historical viewpoint.** The same view-
point was determinative for many early Anabaptists.” Salvation history
is fundamental to the work of Flacius,® to early covenant theology,*' and
to scholarly Pietism.” Salvation history exegesis of Scripture even
became the central theme for the prophetic-salvation historical theology
196 e BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

of the nineteenth century.® Biblicism, too, occasionally emphasized “the

grand salvation historical context.” One of the champions of pneumatic
exegesis inclined in the direction of Hofmann’s salvation-historical
interpretation. Today evangelical theologians see themselves as stand-
ing within the salvation-historical tradition.® To the extent that critical
researchers proceed from the basis of a connection between both testa-
ments, interpreting the Old Testament—New Testament relationship as
“promise-fulfilment;’”’ they too are making use of a salvation-historical
understanding.
Before we sketch the various dimensions of a salvation historical
interpretation, a preliminary definition of “salvation history” is called
for. Salvation history denotes the activity of God, inseparably woven into
history in its entirety, through which he effects his redeeming and per-
fecting saving will. The term inseparable does not mean “indistin-
guishable.’ Salvation history and history in its entirety can certainly be
distinguished; they are, however, not separate. The opposite of “salva-
tion history” is also not “secular history.” For from the Bible’s point of
view there is no “secular,” no God-less flow of history. All history rather
receives impetus from, and is made possible by, God. There is, however,
with and within history in its entirety a quite specific manifestation of
God’s salvific and perfecting will. History in its entirety and salvation
history are, therefore, similarly related to each other as world order and
God’s particular ordering of his own people, as the people at large and
the community of faith. Luther’s depiction of the two spheres of God’s
ordering furnishes another illustration.
1. Salvation-historical interpretation is first of all historical inter-
pretation. It is fundamentally independent of contemporary historical
interest. Salvation-historical thinking practiced a “historical” approach
to the Bible long before there was such a thing as “historical criticism.”
If interest in history were to wane in contemporary culture, it would not
impair salvation-historical interpretation. At the most it would present
a greater challenge for its justification. Because salvation-historical
thought takes God’s action as its point of departure, it is essentially con-
 THE UNITY OF SCRIPTURE @ 197

cerned to relate to and incorporate the universal cosmos, God’s creation.

That renders it a ready discussion partner with other sciences, most of
all the so-called natural sciences, but also with historians, archaeolo-
gists, and anthropologists. To that extent it occupies an extreme oppo-
site position compared to existential interpretation, for which discussion
with the natural sciences increasingly broke off. One might compare
here, e.g., the researches of Bengel, Otinger, P. M. Hahn, M. Stifel, and
K. Heim, all of whom took keen interest in relating their findings to the
natural sciences, to creation and the environment, with the work of
Bultmann. The latter’s position, based on an irrational mathematical
point of decision, met criticism from other sciences (Gédan, Gigon; cf.
Schadewaldt’s interaction with Kaésemann).*® It is indeed striking that
so-called “conservative” (which, however, is not the same as “‘salvation-
historical’’!) theologians have been more competent in archaeology and
historical science than leading historical-critical theologians!
Because salvation-historical theology takes God’s action as its
starting point, it will try to comprehend the stages of his work. There
are various names for these stages: “covenants” (foedera), “divine
economies” (oeconomiae divinae), “periods” (periodi), “states,”
“epochs,” and so on. All of these originate in the common attempt to
organize history under the rubric of revelation and to distill out what is
distinct for each individual period. In this way a differentiated outlook
becomes obligatory—again long before “historical criticism.” The
charge of reducing “everything in the Bible to the same level?’ which
may justly be said of some approaches, does not apply to salvation-his-
torical interpretation.
Because, however, these stages form an interconnected whole, and
because God’s revelation itself is goal-oriented and purposeful, every
salvation-historical interpretation becomes teleological in scope. This
explains the tendency to emphasize the eschaton. This emphasis com-
ports with revelation to the extent that revelation does indeed impinge
on man, beckons him and refers him to the consummation as a source
of meaning for the present. It is true that salvation-historical interpreta-
198 e@ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

tion must struggle with the danger of thinking only in terms of the
eschaton, thereby impoverishing itself through fixation with eschatology
alone. Its teleological vision, however, brings with it the further positive
possibility of grasping history as pedagogy. In that way it can appeal to
the paidagogos-statements of the New Testament (Gal 3:24; 4:2), as
well as to the wisdom and Old Testament conceptual field of musar
(instruction, reproof) and the basic relationship of believers, as God’s
children, to their heavenly Father. Constant attention to God’s action
protects salvation-historical interpretation from the misunderstanding of
confusing salvation history with tradition history.
Further, the connection of the stages of God’s action concretizes
itself in the phenomenon of “types.” Goppelt has nicely shown how
important this concept is in the New Testament. He goes so far as to call
typology the “pre-eminent and . . . characteristic mode of interpretation”
of the New Testament.” In fact, the New Testament shows us the close
connection between salvation-historical and typological understanding.
Because God gives history a purpose, each individual event and its
respective form lie in a more or less direct connection to that purpose.
The purpose of events is not exhausted in their isolated occurrence; it
rather reaches beyond them. The doctrine of the Bible relates more to
the typology of the historical than to a didactic system of doctrinal
concepts.
2. Salvation-historical interpretation is, second, an interpretation
that is open to the fullness of revelation. It is noteworthy that this form
of interpretation has no need for an elimination or qualitative rejection
of certain biblical strata. This becomes most visible in comparison with
the Enlightenment. Karl Aner once said in view of Neology: “The con-
tent of which Neology emptied the concept of revelation is the histori-
cal; the content with which Neology replaced it was rational in nature?””!
The moment that history is replaced with the rational, however, the Bible
becomes a legalistic norm. It is thoroughly understandable that in the
Enlightenment moral reason is elevated to the status of a dogmatic cri-
terion, that concepts like morality and moral perfection hold sway, and
 THE UNITY OF SCRIPTURE @ 199

that Christianity is “transformed into ethics”? Thus arose an atmo-

sphere in which Karl (Carl) Friedrich Bahrdt could translate Matthew
5:4: “Happy are those who prefer the sweet melancholies of virtue to the
boisterous joys of vice?’* The fullness of Scripture was bound to be
impoverished by this “cult of virtue” (Aner, p. 164). Further, it is also
understandable that sturdily historical books like Nehemiah, Esther,
Chronicles, and Kings were set aside as unsuitable in terms of “‘virtue”””
Existential interpretation was also in no position to grasp the full-
ness of revelation in history. Bultmann believed that “the mythological
garb” of the New Testament could be “‘stripped off?’ Then one could
push through to the “understanding of existence” concealed beneath it.”
Here Israel’s history becomes meaningless for Christian faith.” In con-
trast to H.-D. Wendland, Bultmann does not wish to speak of “view of
history and consciousness of history in the New Testament” but rather
solely of a “historical mythology.” His fateful conclusion: “precisely the
events and persons that constitute salvation history are, in the New
Testament sense, not historical but mythological phenomena.’” This
turns salvation history into a myth.
Salvation-historical interpretation can take quite a different tack.
From the outset it can dispense with squeezing the fullness of biblical
statements through the filter of a legalistic norm or some other set of
principles. It will seek out historical connections but also allow that
which is unconnected to stand in its historical diversity. It will be able
to hear everything the Bible records—because that is just how it took
place in the history that God has constituted and reigns over. It comes,
therefore, in its own way to Ricoeur’s basic principle: “The event is our
master.”
Here it must acknowledge that the enscripturation of revelation
presents a selection of events. The Bible has “‘gaps.’” The causal chains
that we like to establish are often impossible to construct—with the one
exception that a certain cause, the God who reveals himself, orchestrated
the rise of all these reports. On the other hand we are dealing with a
dynamic fullness which never becomes just “an empty oneness”
200 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

(Schlatter, Dogma, p. 369). A graphic example here are the resurrection

reports. They have the “scent of truth” about them.* They have decisive
importance for the New Testament. They furnish a dynamic entrée into
and for subsequent church history. Yet to the present day there has been
no convincing organization of these reports into a synopsis or a smooth
chronological sequence.*' Another example would be the accounts of
Jews fleeing to Egypt during the time of Jeremiah. The trail of these
fugitives dwindles into nothing within the Bible, as it does also for
Jeremiah himself. Or to switch to another level: we know nothing very
precise about the origin of Satan, despite his importance for the course
of salvation history. We meet, then, with a dynamic fullness, not a seam-
less mosaic or perfectly pieced together puzzle. A flexible, open, salva-
tion-historical interpretation corresponds most adequately to this
situation.
Nevertheless, there are tendencies and various levels of impor-
tance within this dynamic fullness. The predominant tendency is doubt-
less the Christological. Two simple facts account for this. First, Christ
is the central figure of the New Testament. Second, for its part the New
Testament is the fulfillment, the goal, of the old covenant. The much-
maligned Wilhelm Vischer, scorned for his Christological interpretation
of the Old Testament, at least made the attempt to follow this predom-
inant tendency, a tendency central to revelation.
Scripture reveals to us not only tendencies but also various levels
of importance. In his rebuke of Israel’s leaders Jesus says they had
“neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and
faithfulness” (Mt 23:23 NIV). As interesting as the Bible’s genealogies
are in their place, Paul nevertheless warns Timothy against devotion “‘to
myths and endless genealogies” which “promote controversies rather
than God’s work .. ”” (1Ti 1:4 NIV). Salvation-historical interpretation
seeks to trace nothing other than “God’s work.” As it does this it also
discovers “more important matters” in comparison to less important. It
does this, however, in the course of study of the Bible and through inner-
biblical standards, not with preconceived principles like “love,” “justifi-
 THE UNITY OF SCRIPTURE @ 201

cation,” or the like. It thereby remains open to revelation insofar as it

freely discusses the tendencies and levels of importance it discerns
rather than apodictically setting them in concrete.
3. Salvation-historical interpretation corresponds, third, to the
complex character of biblical revelation. To depict this let us consider
recent Protestant-Catholic dialogue. On the one hand E. Kasemann
emphasized that Romans 4:5 was the Archimedean point of New
Testament theology.*? He wished to center the entire structure of New
Testament theology on this point, the doctrine of justification. On the
other hand Catholic theologians like H. Kiing and W. Léser responded
with the question whether an interpretation that was foresworn to
uphold the doctrine of justification in this way could possibly be in a
position to discern the entirety of the biblical message.** Their question
cannot be facilely dismissed by referring to Catholicism’s beloved
“Complexio oppositorum” (integration of opposites). The New
Testament message is not, in fact, exhausted in what it says about the jus-
tification of the ungodly. And the only way Kasemann could arrive at
such a position was by combining a traditional (i.e., Lutheran) Paulinism
with an exclusion of “early catholic,’ “inauthentic,” and other elements
that the New Testament contains.
The Jesus tradition alone gives abundant indication of just how
complex the New Testament is. The same Jesus who referred to the near-
ness of the kingdom of God also founded the church (cf. Mt 4:17 with
16:18f.; 18:15ff.; 28:18ff.). The same Jesus who called for ongoing
eschatological readiness also prepared his disciples for the unexpectedly
long time until his return (cf. Mt 24:42ff. with 25:5, 19). The same Jesus
for whom the righteousness of the Pharisees and scribes was insufficient
also praised harlots (cf. Mt 5:20 with 21:32). Complexity was, however,
already integral to the Old Testament. The same God who visits the guilt
of the fathers on the children (Ex 20:5; Nu 14:18; Ex 34:7) also moves
his prophets to say that the son does not have to bear the guilt of the
father (Eze 18:20; cf. Jer 31:29f., but also Dt 24:16; 2Ki 14:6). In many
passages the complexity is so profound that prima facie contradictions
202 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

appear (cf. Ro 3:28 with Jas 2:24). Salvation-historical interpretation, by

taking seriously the historical location and particular time of each indi-
vidual witness, is not compelled to become referee or schoolmaster over
revelation’s various statements. It can accord to each statement its right-
ful place in the dynamic and contingent onrush of salvation history.
Salvation history has no need, therefore, to slip into the garb of the cen-
sor, a garb readily donned by Enlightenment critics and criticism.
Complexity is a hallmark of history itself as we experience it. In
certain of Jesus’ teachings on discipleship (Mt 8:18—22/Lk 9:57-60),
e.g., Jesus gives quite various instructions, which, however, fit into spe-
cific situations when applied with pastoral wisdom. Peter, who one
minute wishes to fight and die for Jesus, denies Jesus shortly thereafter.
Paul dogmatically rejects circumcision, yet practices it on missionary
grounds (cf. Gal 5:1f. with Ac 16:3). The state can be called God’s min-
ister (Ro 13:4, 6), yet may transform itself into an anti-Christian struc-
ture (Rev 13).
No doctrinal system, however ingenious, is in a position to deal
with this complexity of revelation. But salvation-historical interpreta-
tion is sufficiently open and flexible to cope with it. Recalling Bengel’s
hermeneutical principle “Distingue tempora, et concordabit Scriptura”
(“Distinguish the times, and Scripture will agree’”’),*° we thus see in sal-
vation-historical interpretation the interpretive procedure that is most
capable of doing justice to the unity of revelation.

SCRIPTURE’S UNITY AND CENTER

It is difficult to speak of a “center” of Scripture today, because the rubric

“center of Scripture” is often separated from the “unity of Scripture?’
While the two were closely identified at the time of the Reformation, the
Enlightenment disengaged them. Indeed, the “center of Scripture” prac-
tically replaced the lost “unity of Scripture.” .
In discussion to date, the notions of “what promotes Christ” and
“justification of the ungodly” play a central role.
 THE UNITY OF SCRIPTURE @ 203

It is undeniable that Luther’s work exhibits a “christological con-

centration.’** This same concentration is also present, however, as early
as Irenaeus and other patristic interpreters as they construe the Old
Testament as pointing to Christ.” It should not be forgotten that Luther’s
remark about what “promotes Christ” appears in a specific passage
among a specific system of coordinates. The remark is #1) a “religious”
principle* and is therefore to be used to exclude writings on critical
grounds only with great caution; it relates #2) to a writing which Luther
did not hold to be canonical;* and it is #3) indicative of a weighty sub-
jectivity” that still remains all too virulent today. All in all, the Lutheran
“what promotes Christ” is unsuited to replace the idea of the unity of
Scripture.®!
Still less can “justification” serve in this capacity.
Recently Werner Loser, a Catholic discussion partner in
Protestant-Catholic dialogue, has again thrown open the question of
how the determination that the doctrine of justification is the center of
Scripture relates to the unity of Scripture. He calls for reflection here
whether Protestants are “making just one particular segment of doctrine
(doubtless important, but neither exhaustively nor exclusively adequate
to convey the fulness of the biblical message) the key and standard for
the whole-’” His deliberations culminate in the pointed question: “Does
Protestant theology really allow Scripture to serve as ‘source and norm
of proclamation’. . when it makes an admittedly important but still par-
tial aspect of Scripture the preeminent, central, and normative aspect of
the entire Scripture?” Loser thinks it rather imperative “to seek to
determine Scripture’s unity instead of its center?” It will be recalled that
earlier H. Kiing raised similar questions with Kasemann.”* These ques-
tions cannot be pushed aside as confessional polemic. They are rather
justified when the center of Scripture is pitted against the entirety and
unity of Scripture.
Neither church history nor revelation permits us to pit Scripture’s
center against its unity in this way. That is obviously the reason why the
young Karl Barth, of all people, heartily agreed with Catholic critics at
204 e BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

this point. He rejected both Luther’s “what promotes Christ’ as well as

other talk of the “center of Scripture” for the simple reason that the
entirety of Scripture is, or ought to be, the center of focus.”
If, however, it is impossible to replace the unity of Scripture with
its center, or to play the two off against each other, then the question
becomes all the more pressing: assuming Scripture’s unity, can we
speak of a “center of Scripture”—and if so, how? In pondering these
questions we are not in an ab ovo situation, i.e., starting from scratch,
but can rather refer, e.g., to A. Schlatter and O. Weber for guidelines.
Schlatter at first endorses a “central point of Scripture’’” He even
wishes to formulate it as Luther did: “Whatever promotes Christ is
canonical.” He, then, however turns against the misuse of this formula,
offering the following comments:

That principle [i.e., “what promotes Christ”] would

be misused if it were used to prove that only explicit
proclamation of the Christ needs to be regarded as
the divine word. It would be misused if taken to
mean that the only thing important in the Old
Testament were that which contains the messianic
promise, and the only thing important in the New
that which directly refers to Jesus. Thus conceived
[Luther’s] notion would approximate the idea of
Christ’s kingly office, understood in such a way that
all other ideas of Christ are deprived of importance
and dismissed—the Old Testament prophet becom-
ing nothing unless he speaks directly of the kingly
office, the New Testament apostle nothing unless he
describes that office. This would be to replace the
concrete unity of Scripture again with an empty,
monotonous uniformity.
 THE UNITY OF SCRIPTURE @ 205

In other words, when “Christ the center” becomes “Christ the exclusive
reigning principle,’ then Scripture is emptied and robbed of its fullness.
The parallel here to W. Léser (above) is obvious. Schlatter’s consistency
here is why for him—as for Bengel!—even the epistle of James leads to
Chrst?® ;
O. Weber offers two further valuable thoughts. First, he urges us
to consider that the center of Scripture “is not an idea but an event?”
That means, however, that the center of Scripture is determined by a per-
son. “Jesus Christ is . . . the center of the whole Scripture:”'”
Schlatter and Weber furnish usable starting points. Yet it must now
be pointed out that revelation itself makes no mention of “the center of
Scripture.” That is in any case a warning to us lest we make such a “‘cen-
ter’ into a slogan or speak of it as a self-evident given. We also observe,
nevertheless, that the Old Testament presses toward the figure of an
eschatological redeemer, whether he be called “Son of Man” or
“Messiah” or something else. We observe, further, that the New
Testament recognized precisely this Messiah in Jesus (e.g., Jn 20:31)
and that the New Testament derives from this redeemer. Undoubtedly,
Jesus Christ is the turning point and central figure of both testaments.'®'
It is possible to take a further step, following both Schlatter and Weber
as well as early church and Reformation exegesis, in affirming that if
Jesus is God’s Son, then he cannot be fit neatly into our contemporary
conceptions. For in that case he existed prior to Scripture, and he is, in
Trinitarian unity with the Father and the Holy Spirit, also the author of
Scripture.’ What confronts us in both Old and New Testament is not a
word ignorant or hostile to Christ but rather a word that is in the deep-
est sense “Christ”-ian. Christological interpretation of the Old
Testament was, then, no mistake but rather a necessity for the church.
To express it in Weber’s apt formulation: the Old Testament “has its ori-
gin in the one who is also its destination.”
A “center of Scripture” can, then, only be spoken of in a revela-
tionally sound way if its threefold characteristic is upheld: #1) The cen-
ter can only be personal, as given in the person of Jesus, the Son of God
206 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

and Messiah. Every attempt to determine this center materially, e.g., as

the doctrine of justification or a theologia crucis (theology of the cross),
goes astray.'* #2) The center can only be dynamic-historical in nature,
a center that stands in a living relation to the entirety of salvation his-
tory. Every attempt to distill this out as an isolated entity, or to formu-
late it as some binding doctrine, disrupts and destroys the continuity of
salvation-historical revelation. The center and turning point that consists
in the redemptive work of Christ Jesus is also given in dynamic-histor-
ical fashion." #3) Finally, what is at issue is that the triune God speaks
to us in the entire Scripture. We cannot merely declare Jesus to be the
center of the New Testament. He is also responsible for the authorship
of the Old Testament, in the same way that the Spirit who brought forth
the New Testament is the Spirit of Christ, indeed the very “Lord” him-
self (2Co 3:17). Otherwise we receive two Bibles that are different from
one another in principle, a Jewish and a Christian.

UNITY AND HARMONIZATION

Finally we must once more take up the key word harmonization. What
is the relation between “harmonization/harmonizing” and “unity of
Scripture”? The opening of this chapter made clear that harmonizing
attempts in scriptural interpretation often meet with strong, occasionally
emotional resistance. In the history of theology, however, we find not
even one “no to such attempts. We recall Pierre-Daniel Huet’s
”?

Demonstatio Evangelica of 1679, which attempted to harmonize the

witnesses of antiquity and the statements of the Bible.' We further
recall the work, which we have already alluded to, of Karl August
Gottlieb Keil (1810), who expressly charged criticism with the obliga-
tion first of all of trying to eliminate contradictions.'” We found in W.
Wrede the knowledge that “opposition to a dogmatically determined
harmonization” is “itself of a dogmatic nature’?! Based on all this it is
understandable that interpreters who are convinced of inspiration speak
quite openly of the “task of harmonization’ and distance themselves
 THE UNITY OF SCRIPTURE @ 207

from a “modern quest to find differences.”!"° They likewise regard “the

method of harmonizing and integrating all that Scripture declares” as
proper.'"' Quite recently Craig L. Blomberg has produced a thorough
investigation of the justification and boundaries of harmonization. He
concerns himself With, among other things, extracanonical literature.
Blomberg shows that the attempt to harmonize can be a permissible,
indeed proper method in the area of historical science.''’? Harmonization
is also an “entirely legitimate” working possibility for the interpreter in
the area of historical investigation of the Bible.'”
We conclude that the history of theology and research forbid us to
see only something negative in “harmonization.” It is not necessarily the
sign of a heretical theologia gloriae (theology of glory) when someone
tries to iron out alleged discrepancies of Scripture.''*
Revelation itself opens to us the proper, i.e., revelationally sup-
ported, path. If the statement is correct that God spoke by the prophets
of the Old Testament, by his Son, and by the apostles (cf. Heb 1:1f.; 1Th
2:13); and if it is moreover true that revelation has God as its one de
facto author (cf. 2Ti 3:16; 2Pe 1:21); then it is in fact the duty of the
interpreter to do justice to this unity of the entire Bible.''> That is, it is
his duty to attempt to demonstrate as far as possible (see below) this
unity in faith and the veracity that the Holy Spirit grants. We arrive here
at a point, then, where we see that the inspiration and unity of Scripture,
together with the interpreter’s stand toward or against the faith, shape
the direction that interpretation will take. But mark well: that person
who cannot affirm the inspiration and unity of Scripture, who demands
that the interpreter be an ostensibly “neutral” scientist who eschews the
faith—that person likewise labors under factors that shape his interpre-
tation! It should however be clear on all sides that “grotesque attempts
at harmonization” and “gross artificialities” are not to be counte-
nanced.''* The Holy Spirit is no enemy of honesty.'” That is why we
emphasized “as far as possible” above; it was an implicit recognition
that the human interpreter remains constantly fallible and limited—and
that applies to the regenerate interpreter, too. It was also a recognition
208 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

that Scripture, from a human viewpoint, evinces gaps and conveys a his-
tory, not a seamless doctrinal system. The question finally arises, then,
whether the concepts “harmonization/harmonization methods” are
really well-advised. It would be better to speak of a “convergence
method.” That would aptly express that the specific nature of salvation-
historical events and statements are not all to be leveled or smoothed out
but rather are to be related to each other in the light of the one human
author. That would be to express, further, that the Bible aims at goals and
a future and wishes to be understood along the broad lines of these pur-
poses and future aims.
 ,
CHAPTER ELEVEN

The Historical Nature

(Historicality)
of Scripture

THE PROBLEM OF SCRIPTURE’S HISTORICAL

NATURE (HISTORICALITY)

For many faithful churchgoers today, talk of the “historical nature of

Holy Scripture” immediately conjures up the specter of biblical criti-
cism. Why? Because in the past they repeatedly heard pastors, religious
educators, professors, and church representatives—all convinced that
historical criticism is essential—insist on the historical nature of the
Bible so they could better show discrepancies and contradictions, cracks
and flaws, mistakes and errors in the Bible. Such leaders urged that the
Bible is an “earthen vessel’”—a clever but ill-conceived twisting of 2
Corinthians 4:7—whose content has seeped out of its cracked container
and is no longer recoverable. In this way Scripture as normative foun-
dation for living was taken out of faithful churchgoers’ hands.
Nevertheless, we must speak of the historical nature of Scripture.
210 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

Why? Because divine revelation entered into human history. And this
entrance is unlike, say, what Islam claims for the Koran. Revelation
rather took shape through a chain of events which in turn created new
history (Heb 1:1f.). Revelation did not thereby become no more than a
part of human history. But it is also not totally separate from that his-
tory. What took place was rather a form of progressive verbal fixing
(Inverbation). Human ears, eyes, and hearts could grasp it. It is not true,
as was ascribed to Philo for many years, that man received revelation “in
an ecstatic state;”' that inspiration made man “completely unconscious.”
What took place here was not the obliteration of consciousness but its
expansion. Man is urged to the highest unfolding of his natural and spir-
itual gifts in order to understand God’s revelation (exemplarily illus-
trated in Da 10:8-11).
God made the creation. God is the ultimate ground of history. God
revealed himself in history in such a way that his revelation could be dis-
cerned even in the midst of a fallen human race. When we speak of the
historical nature of the Bible, we have in mind precisely that crossover
of the eternal divine revelation into the present space-time world (tran-
sitio revelationis). This crossover, in which the eternal enters the tem-
poral and itself assumes the characteristics of a temporal phenomenon,
is a mystery.’
This crossover confers on the Bible the features of a “history
book?”
For those who are convinced of the reality of a self-revealing God
and who encounter this God in Scripture as actually given, it is impos-
sible to remain indifferent to history. Two rather divergent examples will
serve as examples. The first is C. F. H. Henry. He points out that the
“idea of history” itself stems from the Bible. “God reveals himself . . .
within this external history in unique saving acts.” Therefore, we must
insist that “historical acts” belong inextricably to divine revelation. A
consequence of this for Henry is that evangelical theology in particular
must work and research within a historical framework.’ The second
example is W. Pannenberg. He defines “history” as “that occurrence that
 THE HISTORICAL NATURE (HISTORICALITY) OF SCRIPTURE @ 211

is suspended between promise and fulfillment, in that it receives through

the promise an irrevocable orientation toward future fulfillment?’ Then
however he continues: “History is the most all-inclusive horizon of
Christian theology:” This “historical quality of redemptive occurrence”
must “today be championed in interaction with . . . the methodological
principles of historical-critical research:’ Pannenberg’s opponents are
the existential “historicality” of Bultmann, the “metahistory” of Kahler,
and the “primal history” of Barth."
To summarize our initial conclusions: #1) God is the initiator and
shaper of history. We can therefore agree to no concept of history that
separates God from history. Christian theology would, e.g., have to
reject as incompatible with revelation a “scientific” concept of history
in Girgensohn’s sense, one which regarded history as “always the
human-earthly and not the divine-heavenly.’ For history is not the oppo-
site of God.'' #2) Because God via revelation projects himself into the
history he creates, we must take history seriously and investigate the his-
torical outworkings of revelation. Historical research, rightly under-
stood, is no enemy of a theology of revelation; it rather follows from it.
Here, however, we encounter a whole series of questions and
problems.

THE RELATION OF FAITH AND HISTORY

First we inquire more precisely: What does biblical faith have to do with
history? The answer emerges immediately if we make a comparison
with extrabiblical religions, e.g., with Buddhism. For a Buddhist, no
essential importance attaches to where Buddha was born or where and
when he died. Indeed, the Buddhist would really feel no decisive loss if
it turned out that Gautama Buddha had never lived at all. Buddha’s
eightfold path to virtue is basically true even if the historical person
from which the path derives never existed. The situation is entirely dif-
ferent for the Christian. For him it is decisive whether Jesus was God’s
Son, came from David’s lineage, and died on the cross of Golgotha.
212 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

Proof that Jesus did not die on the cross, that the tomb was not empty,
would permanently shake his faith, alter it, eventually even terminate it.
Biblical faith is actually quite closely bound to real history.
This also, however, weakens the Christian faith in the eyes of the
world. If you remove the historical basis upon which it rests, you have
in principle refuted it. Not until we grasp this do we begin to understand
why there had to be such serious and dramatic debates over the histor-
ical nature of the biblical accounts. When we do grasp this, we see why
H. E. Weber is justified in characterizing the relation of faith and his-
tory as “the theological central issue” of trust in the Bible. We also see
why he states that faith “hinges on its historicity-’'? Even in the disputed
area of Old Testament study, Otto Procksch once remarked, “If Abraham
or Moses had to be given up as historical figures, then my faith, but with
it also my status as a Christian, while not destroyed, would nevertheless
be altered at this more or less decisive point."
For clarification we must add that Procksch’s statement touches on
a problem not unique to academic theology. The same problem affects
the so-called laity, too, because what Procksch calls his “status as a
Christian” is ultimately the same for all.
We ask, therefore, “what actually happened,’ and in placing the
question we do so consistent with revelation. Here we touch on the true
“servant form” of Scripture: to the extent that its character is historical
in nature, it is open to attack and to very different interpretations.
This weakness or “servant form” of Scripture emerges still more
sharply when we clarify the tension between faith and history. For both
belong quite closely together, yet also find themselves to a certain
degree in conflict with each other. This tension shows itself on a num-
ber of levels.
First, faith is dependent on factual history: “without factual
redemptive history evangelical faith would be null and void?’s Indeed,
faith “clings to” these God-furnished facts (words or deeds). Without a
preceding event there is no faith. On the other hand, historical investi-
gation cannot create faith.'® Even a 100-percent convincing historical
 THE HISTORICAL NATURE (HISTORICALITY) OF SCRIPTURE @ 213

demonstration does not, of itself, necessarily lead to faith. Why?

Because all historical events are only a means of encounter, and faith
seeks fellowship with that one who encounters us through such events.
Even the person who knows without question that God exists is not nec-
essarily a believer.’This is proved by Genesis 3 (cf. also Jas 2:19 with
Heb 11:6). To that extent one can say the faith extends beyond history.
Or to put it another way: the history God brings about is the presuppo-
sition, but not the source, of faith.
A second tension results from the peculiar nature of historical
research. For historical judgments as such can never be more than judg-
ments of probability.” The historian remains, therefore, ever unsure, ten-
tative, hypothetical.'* Faith, however, trusts entirely and unconditionally
—although this is not to be confused with freedom from trials and temp-
tation. Why? Because faith extends beyond the event to the person in
whom the event has its origin. Faith binds itself to this person in a com-
prehensive sense, a sense that is not dependent on every detail of every
event. Nevertheless, it also holds true here that the course of events can
enable faith or destroy it. As strange as it sounds: historical investiga-
tion takes on more weight in destruction than in construction. That helps
explain the apologetic interest of theologians. In this connection the
interaction between Siegmund Jacob Baumgarten (1706-57) and Johann
Martin Chladenius in the eighteenth century is of interest. In contrast to
Chladenius, Baumgarten held that a verdict of probability was sufficient
in the area of historical investigation of the Bible. Probability judgments
developed “into the chief form of historical verification.’’? For
Chladenius, however, there was “in principle no way from probability to
certainty.” Clearly Baumgarten stood closer to the truth. It is not pos-
sible to elevate historical judgments to judgments of certainty. In the his-
torical dimension we must content ourselves, then, with a judgment of
probability.
We would be giving short shrift, however, to the tension between
the judgment of probability of historical research and the judgment of
certainty of faith if we did not also point to a solution. #1) A solution
214 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

emerges, first, through noting that by far most acts in human life are
based on judgments of mere probability. When I walk to the train or bus
each morning, it is “probable” that it will run as scheduled. But it does
run (as a rule)! This is, then, a parallel to the statistical probability of
the “laws of nature”—which actually work! To the extent that historical
investigation is a part of normal life and of human history, we may not
erect higher demands than we do elsewhere in the framework of life as
God establishes it. #2) Historical research, however, is only a partial
aspect of biblical interpretation. It is embedded in a larger and compre-
hensive encounter with revelation, an encounter which in turn flows into
an encounter with the One from whom revelation issues (see chaps. 5
and 6 above). It would be erroneous to want to do away with historical
research. It would also be erroneous, however, to isolate historical
research from its larger connections with revelation and encounter, and
even more mistaken to want to burden it with the entire responsibility
for deciding yes or no. The kernel of truth in the view that wants to dis-
solve ties between faith and history lies here: historical research over-
whelms, indeed becomes a form of antitheology, when it is said to be
the sole deciding factor in deciding the faith question. The tragedy of
those who champion the absolute freedom of historical criticism from
church dogma lies not least in the fact that they make this erroneous
move. Instead, faith in the self-revealing God and trust in his revelation
must be underway before we tackle historical investigation of the Bible.
Such investigation is, therefore, actually the outcome and not the pre-
supposition of a theology of revelation.
But doesn’t that mean that those persons are right who raise the
objection that theologians who believe in revelation are not really work-
ing “historically,” that they are convinced in advance that “the Bible is
always right”? The answer to this can be given in a pair of statements.
#1) Like every other act in life, historical investigation entails the dan-
ger that the interpreter’s faith will be changed or even destroyed. To that
extent, then, historical work is not undertaken as a game but as a seri-
ous risk—just like every other step in faithful discipleship. #2) As long
 THE HISTORICAL NATURE (HISTORICALITY) OF SCRIPTURE @ 215

as the interpreter, however, trusts God and his Word, he will agree with
revelation also at those points where it stands in tension with or contra-
diction to other sciences and life experiences. Revelatory truth possesses
a higher worth for him than any “truth” outside of revelation. Examples
of this are found in’Luther and Bengel, who would have “rather [done]
violence to secular history” than give up the preeminence of Scripture.”!
It is, to be sure, an article of honesty to lay such tensions on the table
openly, neither concealing them through cosmetic measures nor deny-
ing their existence.

THE ATTEMPT TO SEPARATE FAITH AND HISTORY

Based on the previous section, it is a mistake to want to dissolve the tie

between biblical faith and history. Attempts in this direction have taken
various forms.
The roots of such attempts may possibly stretch back to the occa-
sional remarks of Martin Luther. In his study of Luther, Heinrich
Bornkamm cites such an utterance: “better that we lacked world and his-
tory than the word and doctrine’’” True, Luther did not let go of history.
But his placing of the Pauline Epistles ahead of the Gospels, a move
closely related?’ to the quotation just given, signals the possibility of a
distance between the two, even in relation to salvation history. As soon
as doctrine is absolutized, such tendencies can become dangerous. This
is observable in the Enlightenment in pronounced measure. To cite Karl
Aner’s well-known formula once more: “The content of which Neology
emptied the concept of revelation is the historical; the content with
which they refilled it was rational.’ Rationality therefore came to take
history’s place to a great extent. Lessing valued “truths of reason” higher
than “truths of history.’ Semler rejected most of all the Old Testament
historical books (Judges, Ruth, Samuel, Kings, Chronicles, Ezra,
Nehemiah, Esther) because he found “absolutely no trace of God’s
word” in them.” In 1803 Gottlieb Wilhelm Meyer hurled the charge at
Luther that the latter still took the Old Testament as history.”° Once his-
216 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

torical criticism had cast doubt on the historical substance of Scripture,

it began to yearn for the “absolute,” which at the same time had to be
“super-historical.” The “tendency to detach religion from history” had
a twofold effect: in the “historical” is seen only the “relative,” and then
historical investigation is deprived of the “absolute” that is a necessity
for religion. History withers to mere “appearance” of the “super-his-
torical’’* This historical skepticism spilled over and influenced bibli-
cism, even Kahler.”
It is almost reminiscent of W. Bousset when Girgensohn states that
“the super-historical . . . only glimmers through the earthly-human
shell?”° Essence is discovered beyond the historical realm, for “essence
is . . . that which is super-human, super-historical?”?' The historical
becomes merely a vehicle of eternal ideas. What harm can historical crit-
icism do? “The vast sweep of eternity alone is decisive, the great, eter-
nally unchanging spirit of the whole. This frees us from the details of the
unholy guerrilla war [that history comprises]:’* But at what price! The
history that God has brought about, the world that saw his mighty acts
(Ac 2:11), is reduced to an insignificant “guerrilla war.’ Indeed, history
is ultimately excluded totally from the work of redemption: “That which
is historical cannot redeem mankind.”*’ Gottlob Schrenk (1952) likewise
takes his stand on the “super-historical, the absolute;’. which remains
inaccessible to historical research and untouchable by criticism, while the
historical events of revelation are handed over totally to criticism.*
History becomes radically distant in the “dialectical theology” of
Emil Brunner. “History or Revelation?” is the provocative question that
served as title of an impressive article he penned. It sounds like an echo
of Girgensohn, among others, when Brunner states, “Faith deals with the
absolute. Therefore it is not directed toward history but toward the end
of history.’ Then still more sharply: “History” is “that from which rev-
elation in Christ . . . redeems us.” It is, then, “in principle totally irrel-
evant when, under what temporal circumstances, in which historical
context, Christ lived and what preceded him and what ‘conditioned’
him.”* The Platonism that vitiates this Protestant theology of history.
 THE HISTORICAL NATURE (HISTORICALITY) OF SCRIPTURE @ 217

finally confirms its own crass character when Brunner defines history as
“recognition that only the entirely other is the actually self-existent.””
In the final analysis this means that we can “not take both God and his-
tory seriously:””* f
Oepke (1947) perceived this Platonism, which Barth and Tillich
could also be charged with,” and refused to accept an only “tangential”
contact with history.*° He saw, however, “nearly insurmountable diffi-
culties” when it came to “the problem [of] faith and history’! He felt
_ these difficulties could be overcome by supplementing historical inter-
pretation with a superhistorical pneumatic interpretation, which he
described as “metahistorical exegesis.”*
All these developments give us opportunity to become acquainted
with the importance of a positive relation between faith and history from
the reverse direction, so to speak. Where history is dismissed, close con-
nection to the Word is extinguished. A process repeats itself that is sim-
ilar to what we can observe among the Radical Reformation, namely,
recourse to a spirit that is greater and different from the Word of revela-
tion. This ultimately incomprehensible spirit also appears to animate J.
Wellhausen’s words: “In the core of my soul I make contact with eter-
nity,’ and God stands “behind and beyond the mechanism of the world.”*?
Where Protestant theology took up the retreat from history, even declar-
ing that faith having a historical component is damaging, an idealistic
spirit-religion with Platonic features streamed into the vacuum. People
thought they could acquire a deeper vision elsewhere than that afforded
by the Word. The claim to know “the actual” was made. In this way
Protestant theology became an advocate of historical skepticism.
The protest of evangelical and Catholic theologians was not lack-
ing.*’ A clarification of the historicality of faith is, in fact, essential.

THE REVELATORY STARTING POINT

Such a clarification can only be carried out working from the basis of
revelation. One of the key passages for faith is Exodus 14:31. We read
218 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

of the people of Israel after they passed through the Red Sea and were
delivered from the Egyptians: “And when the Israelites saw the great
power the LorD displayed against the Egyptians, the people feared the
LorD and put their trust in him and in Moses his servant” (NIV). The
faith that arises here attaches itself (this is the likely the root meaning
of the Hebrew ‘mn in the Hiphil) to the mighty act of the Lord. Faith’s
object and trust in the Lord do not, however, require a miracle. A word,
a promise, can also suffice, as Genesis 15:6 shows. In any case, word
and deed are brought together into one entity in the Hebrew concept
dabar.
The true prophetic word is recognized by its coming to pass, i.e.,
by its historical realization (Dt 18:20ff.; cf. 1Pe 1:10ff.; 2Pe 1:16ff.).
There is also the reverse possibility, e.g., in Numbers 16:28ff., where
there is a “preliminary discrediting’* of a contingency (the natural death
of Korah and others) that does not come to pass. Here a word from the
Lord receives the status of a “sign” whose existence could vouchsafe the
word. Indeed, the very word that God spoke creates history:

“... So is my word that goes out from my mouth:

It will not return to me empty,
but will accomplish what I desire
and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.”
(Isa 55:1] NIV)

Out of this came Israel’s education in reality, an education with no

genuine parallel elsewhere. While the Greek world was for the most part
content with concordance of thought, with its logical system, Jews
sought transformed reality. No better characterization of the two out-
looks exists than that offered by Paul: “Jews demand miraculous signs
and Greeks look for wisdom” (1Co 1:22 NIV).
The actual root of the concept of history is the promise. Promise
confers a connectedness on the course of events associated with it.
Promise creates consciousness of the progress and outcome of occur-
 THE HISTORICAL NATURE (HISTORICALITY) OF SCRIPTURE @ 219

rences. It makes observers pay attention to the fate that the word of
promise enjoys. History is thus born, in the actual sense of the word,
through divine revelation. “History” is not the discovery or exclusive
province of modern man. Moderns are able to pursue history only
because biblical revelation teaches them what it is. Later we will return
to this point.
We can measure the above observations against the faith that
becomes visible in the New Testament. The disciples’ faith begins as
they respond to the promise-laden allusion of John the Baptist (Jn
1:35ff.) and to the invitation “Come . . . and you will see” (Jn 1:39 NIV).
Peter’s faith reaches new heights when he casts the net at Jesus’ com-
mand and takes the promised catch (Lk 5:1ff.). The publican Zacchaeus
finds his way to faith when he climbs a tree “to see who Jesus was” (Lk
19:3 NIV). Confession of Jesus as God’s Son arises through the Jesus
who actually and historically encounters those seeking him (Mt 14:33;
16:13ff. par.), not through the speculation of a theological expert.
Certainty regarding the One who was resurrected takes shape in the lit-
eral “tangible” encounter with him (Lk 24:13ff.; Jn 20:14, 19-21).
Apostles must have been members of the group “who have been with
us the whole time the Lord Jesus went in and out among us” (Ac 1:21
NIV). We will not even recount here the “sign” that Jesus intended to be
of assistance in coming to faith (e.g., Jn 10:38). Nor will we take up dis-
cussion of the faith that God proffered through resurrecting Jesus,
according to the Areopagus address (Ac 17:31), or other similar inci-
dents. In any case this much has become clear: faith can only arise
where God has previously—not thought, but acted. That is, it arises as
biblical faith only in the realm of biblical revelation whose occurrence
has extended itself into history.
Whoever separates faith and history, therefore, contradicts revela-
tion. And at the same time we recognize that we must bring a concept
of history derived from, not autonomous from, revelation itself into con-
nection with revelation. Thurneysen called starting from a “modern”
concept of history “fanaticism.”
220 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

THE ATTEMPT TO DISSOLVE FAITH INTO HISTORY

There is, however, another error that must be rejected: the attempt to dis-
solve God and revelation into history. This path has been tried more sel-
dom, perhaps, than the opposite one of trying to emancipate faith from
history. Yet we encounter a quite serious challenge here, too.
In view of F. C. Baur, Geiger came to this conclusion: “Baur’s life
work consisted . . . in the dissolution of theology into history:’** Once
again everything depends on the concept of history that is assumed.
Under Hegel’s influence Baur regarded history as “self-unfolding of the
spirit;”? and that means the human spirit. Accordingly, it is also true that
“Christianity is nothing supernatural and above reason,” but the “inher-
ent possession of the human spirit . . . not something that comes into it
from without.’*° With such presuppositions the dissolution of theology
into history entails two corollaries. First, a second source of revelation
is opened up in the form of Baur’s “speculative” (intellectualized) his-
tory. Second, revelation is ultimately robbed of its divine origin beyond
the realm and ken of mankind.
Hegel’s influence, combined with ideas from romanticism, is also
present in Gunkel.*' The bearers of the history of religion become the
“‘great men who were touched by God’s spirit.” For in Gunkel’s view the-
ology is now “history of religion;’? and the concept of development
plays a decisive role. Gunkel glimpses, to be sure, in this development
the “hand of higher reason’ and can therefore maintain a thoroughgo-
ing grasp on the absolute validity of Christianity. But it is precisely his-
tory that leads to the result that we find today in the form of the Bible.
To that extent one is quite justified in speaking of a “faith in the revela-
tory character of history’’** in Gunkel’s case.
These examples could easily be multiplied. Whether we are deal-
ing with the claim that “after Auschwitz” theology can no longer be
done as previously; whether the assertion is made that only “the poor”
understand the Bible aright, so that we must first all become existentially
poor; whether the subject is a true theology of the people,* to be pitted
 THE HISTORICAL NATURE (HISTORICALITY) OF SCRIPTURE @ 221

against the false theology of former times; whether the demand is that
the Bible must be composed entirely anew for our time—in all such
approaches the presupposition is present, implicit or explicit, that bibli-
cal revelation must be supplemented by “history.”
This always, however, means interpreted history. The one who
interprets it is, in all these cases, man himself. He lacks the authorita-
tive divine Word, so all that meets him from out of history is that same
human word that he brings to it. Precisely for that reason, however, God
_ is not to be identified with history, and revelation is not to be dissolved
into history.

REVELATION AND BARE FACT

The connection between revelation and history leads us to a further pre-

cise question: What role do bare facts play here? Behind us lies an era
of existential interpretation which taught us to view “bare facts” nega-
tively. A distinction was made between bare facts (Fakten) and “mean-
ingful facts” (Tatsachen), on the one hand, and “historicality,’ on the
other. Not until existential relation was present did facts become posi-
tive “historical” phenomena: “facts of the past do not become histori-
cal phenomena until they become meaningful for a subject who himself
stands in that history and participates in it. They become historical phe-
nomena when they speak.”*®
The connection here in the history of ideas with Kierkegaard, for
whom “truth” was only that which “‘is true for me;’” is obvious. Another
important link, however, is to German idealist historiography. A histo-
rian like Johann Gustav Droysen made a sharp distinction between
“reality” and “truth.” The history that we study is the “actualization” of
moral forces.** What occurs and is externally discernible is only the out-
ward appearance of the moral world from which history grows. The
moral world has “truth”; the outward appearance, “reality.” To think his-
torically, then, means “to see this truth in these realities.’ This fur-
nishes the historian his task: “The idea (or complex of ideas) which an
222 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

interpretation highlights in its overall account is in our view the truth of

the overall account. This overall account is in our view the reality, the
outward appearance, of this idea’’*° However: this by no means suggests
that the “real” overall account loses its significance. For interpretatior
is only successful if the prominent presence of the bare fact remains pre-
served. Droysen opens up the question: “Is there a truth without being
right about the facts?”—and answers in the negative.°'
But precisely this basic characteristic of the historian, which itself
determined his standpoint “between theology and philology,’ was
widely abandoned by those engaged in existential interpretation.
Discussion in German-speaking circles bit especially hard on concepts
like “truth” and “reality,” “significance” and “bare fact?’ For example,
in 1967 Edwin E. Schneider proceeds from the assumption of an
antithesis between truth and reality. While natural scientists decipher
only reality, truth is a “central concept of theology.’ E. Fuchs rejects an
identification of “true” and “real” on the grounds that this would lead
to a “sovereignty of what is factually established.’ In remarks of
another student of Bultmann, E. Dinkler, the consequence of this line
of thought emerges. He thinks that “the truth of faith in Christ is not
dependent on the correctness of historical-critical elucidations.’®* While
for Droysen in the nineteenth century, therefore, there was no truth with-
out factual correctness, now the theologian dispenses with such cor-
rectness in order to live on the basis of the “pure truth.”” It is intriguing
here to recall that S. J. Baumgarten, theological ancestor of German
Enlightenment theology, shared Bolingbroke’s stand on the “facts” and
thus “related” Christianity “indissolubly to historical facts.’
Understandably, protest arose from theological,” historical, and
philosophical quarters against this isolation of fact from meaning and
against a one-sided preference for “significance.” Theologically we may
note that there can be no more talk of “redemptive facts” if all that lay
behind these were significance.” Among the best-known protesters was
E. Betti. He did not share Bultmann’s skepticism, according to which
an “objective knowledge” was impossible, and he insisted against
 THE HISTORICAL NATURE (HISTORICALITY) OF SCRIPTURE @ 223

Gadamer and Bultmann that not only the “meaning” but also the
“events” themselves must be the “object of historical understanding.”
So much for theological objections; philosophical protest assumed its
fullest form in P. Ricoeur. His “hermeneutics of testimony” is directed
against the theological separation between “witness of facts and con-
fessing of truth?” He finds in the Bible a thoroughgoing “strict union”
of report (“narrative kernel’) and “confession of faith’? Here he refers
to von Rad and the historical credo of Deuteronomy 26:5—9.% What sim-
ple church folk had already urged in the debate surrounding existential
interpretation is confirmed for them by Ricoeur (appealing to Ex 20:2!):
“Tt is not possible to testify for a meaning without testifying that some-
thing has happened which signifies this meaning.” Every testimony has
two “poles”: the “confessional” and the “narrative.”* This is especially
true for the Bible. In Hebrew, indeed, “the event and its meaning
closely” coincide.” Ricoeur simply uses the term event-signs.”
It makes sense here to check extrabiblical and biblical-historical
sources. In his introduction to Herodotus’s Histories, W. F. Otto under-
scores the pains taken by the Greek historian to give “reliable factual
reports.’ What was true already of Herodotus” is all the more true for
Thucydides.*® The reader should “recognize . . . how it truly was.’
Thucydides, according to his own introduction to his work, had to
aléthes (the real truth) and to saphes (the clear truth) in view. They were
his first priorities. Personal testimony and careful sifting of the testi-
mony of others come together.** Along with the concept of alethes, with
which also Herodotus was familiar,** Thucydides also mentions
akribeia, which means something like scientific exactness, as the ideal
for which he strives.** Here it is worth noting that this guiding motif of
Greek history writers remains constant in spite of the switch from myth
to the exclusion of myth.
We immediately feel reminded of this guiding motif when we turn
to Josephus, the great Jewish historian of the first century A.D. He, too,
wishes to furnish an “exact [akribes] historical presentation.” He, too,
places high value on “truth” and “precision” or “careful accuracy”
224 e BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

(aléthes, akribeia).’6 Yet he emphasizes “facts” or “things that took

place” (pragmata) much more strongly.” True, the simultaneous pres-
ence of both Jogoi and pragmata (words and deeds), which according
to Schadewaldt characterized ancient historiography,** can likewise be
discovered in Josephus.*® But the latter (pragmata, “deeds”) were
stressed, in conscious distinction from Greek authors.” This stress on
pragmata begs to be brought into connection with the Jewish instruc-
tion in reality of which we spoke earlier.
The Roman historian Livius, in opening remarks to his Ad urbe
condita, likewise set forth a few basic tenets of his procedure. He dis-
tinguishes between “more poetically adorned tales” (poeticae magis
decora fabulae) and “unimpeachable historical reports” (incorrupta
rerum gestarum monumenta).°' Both, however, are employed for an
overarching goal: Livius shows “exemplary models” suited to learn
lessons from (inde capias)—history as educator!
Luke bears thorough comparison with the examples mentioned
above. Sneen compares him especially with Thucydides and Polybius.”
Doubtless, however, Josephus’s preface to De Bello Judaico (Jewish
Wars) yields the next parallels. Luke has numerous key terms in com-
mon with Josephus. Among the most important are “events” (prag-
mata), “report” (diégésis), and “carefully” (akribés).°* Sneen comes to
the conclusion that Luke 1:1-4 strives for both “historical reflection”
and “kerygmatic testimony.’ Sneed formulates a fundamental Lucan
conviction as follows: “sound history is an indispensable foundation for
faith.”
The result of the soundings into ancient historians above is this:
bare fact and proclamation, event and meaning, do not admit of separa-
tion.” “Historicality” without foundation in the factual is an ahistorical
construct. “Existential interpretation,’ then, to a very considerable
degree has withdrawn from history and from communication with
historians. ‘
As far as we can survey from Greek, Roman, Jewish, but also
Christian historiography, we are dealing everywhere with interpreted
 THE HISTORICAL NATURE (HISTORICALITY) OF SCRIPTURE @ 225

history. Without the interpreting word, the fact never becomes known as
the truth. Without the fact, the interpreting word becomes myth or fable.
As far as we can speak of history writing at all, we can only receive fact
and proclamation as a tightly interlocked whole—or receive neither one
or the other.’ "
The task of theologians who work with an eye toward history,
therefore, does not consist in purifying faith of the greatest part of its
“factual” component. Their task is rather what Nabert and Ricoeur have
characterized as “the criteriology of the divine’’” More simply: we must
find the correctly interpreted history! Or to formulate it still differently:
we are not consigned to digging out some existentially determined “sig-
nificance’; our task is rather to select the correct history from among the
various “kinds” of interpreted history.
Precisely at this juncture we encounter biblical revelation anew. It
sets forth the claim to be “‘testimony’—“and we know that this testi-
mony is true” (Jn 21:24). It reports, e.g., of that “which Jesus did” (Jn
20:30; 21:25) or, to be concise, of “the factual.’ (Interestingly, the Greek
poiein, “to do,’ as in “what Jesus did,” is equivalent
to the Latin facere,
“to do,” from which our word fact derives.) But at the same time it gives
the true meaning. That is why for Luke, in contrast to the Greek writ-
ers, “eyewitnesses” in general do not suffice. Rather, they must be eye-
witnesses who are at the same time “servants of the Word” (Lk 1:2). For
only such persons can rightly interpret what has taken place. The “cor-
rect” interpretation of the occurrences is also furnished by the passion
story, by the story recounted through Hebrew and Jewish history in
response to the child’s question at the Passover meal (Ex 12:26f.),’* and
by the historical credo of Deuteronomy 26:5ff. Regarding the last pas-
sage G. von Rad spoke of “redemptive acts” and “redemptive history,’
indeed even of a “designation of the most essential brute facts.”°? And
to return to the Gospels, Martin Dibelius’s judgment here is very clear:
“The Gospel . . . encompasses, then, two elements from the very outset:
. . accomplished and interpreted history.”'”
The interpreter seeking to work in the light of revelation, then, will
226 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

also note that he can never have the kerygma, the proclamation, with-
out the fact, and never have the fact without the kerygma. He will turn
to both dimensions with equally scrupulous care. The “servant form” of
revelation does not consist only in its historical vulnerability and its sus-
ceptibility to false interpretations. It also consists in this: that revelation
has entered into the link between the kerygmatic and the factual, a link
that characterizes all human history writing. This mystery alone
explains how someone could accuse revelation of historical indifference
or even historical error because it is a “faith testimony,’ and conversely
could be content with a fides historica (assent to the veracity of histor-
ical facts) and in that way evade revelation’s demand for trust.
Revelation itself, however, forbids that we play off “faith testimony” and
“historical reliability” against each other.

REVELATION AND MIRACLE

Questions surrounding the factual reach their peak once more in the
problematic of miracle. H. E. Weber did not err in seeing the touchstone
of the problem of “faith and history” in the “question of miracle?”"!
In Christian theology miracle has suffered a strange fate. Christian
apologists in the early years of the church battled pagan miracle stories
because they were scientifically untenable.' Their own (Christian) mir-
acles stories, however, they held to be capable of withstanding any inves-
tigation. For Melanchthon and Flacius, miracle was the basis for the
Bible’s authority.'° This viewpoint extended into the earlier period of
the Enlightenment. Even the Institutiones Theologiae dogmaticae of
Joh. Franz Buddeus (1723) used miracle and prophecy as pillars of bib-
lical authority.'*
Then there came one of the most radical upheavals in the history
of theology. In 1670 B. Spinoza in his Tractatus theologico-politicus had
given “compelling” proof of “the impossibility of miracle”’!> With the
help of pantheism Spinoza was able to “include” God himself in his sys-
tem.’ If God’s will was congruent with nature as perceived by reason,
 THE HISTORICAL NATURE (HISTORICALITY) OF SCRIPTURE @ 227

then a miracle that violated the natural order was impossible. Indeed, it
was an abasement of God. Only what reason can understand and justify
can demand our recognition.'” The speed with which Spinoza’s ideas
spread is proven by the anonymous work that appeared in Holland in
1683: Miracles No ‘Violations of the Laws of Nature.'® Alongside of
Spinoza arose the influential movement of English Deism. The question
of miracle occupied a central place in its discussions. David Hume, e.g.,
would later write his famous essay “Of Miracles,’ while somewhat ear-
lier the English Deist Thomas Woolston (1670-1731) wrote “Six
- Discourses on the Miracles of Our Saviour’ The basic drift in
Woolston: “Miracles, which in the new ‘scientific age’ can be shown
never to have happened, are inappropriate faith convictions."
Discussion turned on the question whether “such a thing [as mir-
acles] has actually taken place’”"" In the eighteenth century German the-
ology opened itself up to English Deism on a broad front.'’? Even
conservative interpreters like Joh. Franz Buddeus or Chr. Matth. Pfaff,
who basically would have liked to hold fast to miracles,''’ effect a stark
rationalization in exegeting the miracle accounts. Pfaff, e.g., interprets
the book of Jonah to say that Jonah was picked up by a ship bearing the
name “Great Fish’’; in Joshua 10:12ff. the sun’s movement did not cease,
nevertheless its rays continued to shine; Samson did not execute his
deeds alone but was the leader of a large band; etc.''* This creates a pat-
tern that shows up elsewhere with innumerable modifications.''° Johann
Friedrich Gruner (1777) is already a breakthrough in the direction of
Schleiermacher as the former deprives miracle of its objective charac-
ter and declares it to be “inconceivable for us.”"®
Schleiermacher procured widespead recognition for this view. His
interpretation of miracles can perhaps be summed up in one sentence:
the “wondrous” replaces the “miraculous.”'” Anything that the religious
heart apprehends with awe as flowing from God is a miracle. When,
however, all religious experience is made to become miracle in this way,
the biblical and classical concept of miracle is abandoned. In view of
the historical reports Schleiermacher and his students hold to the ratio-
228 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

nalistic outlook that actual miracles are impossible.'* Basically, all

nineteenth century theology in Germany, to the extent that it relates to
historical-critical research, shares the opinion that today we can no
longer believe in miracles." E.g., K. A. G. Keil in his hermeneutics
book of 1810 rules out all “that can surely not have been fact” (p. 131).
Baur (1855) writes to Karl Hase that “there is no absolute miracle”;
“Lazarus can thus not really have been dead?’ Baur’s student D. F.
Strauss, in a letter to Baur (19 August 1836) appeals to the “unthink-
able nature of the thing itself?”!?!
Indeed, even twentieth-century criticism is still dominated by the
idea that miracles are unhistorical—at least those miracles that one does
not understand! Healings and exorcisms remain because they are
thought to be understandable by psychological means (power of sug-
gestion, psychosomatic considerations). But the so-called nature mira-
cle—which indeed cannot serve as a sober genre-historical
concept!—has found recognition only in evangelical and biblicistic cir-
cles of Protestant theology.'” It should, nevertheless, be expressly men-
tioned that the papal Bible commission in its “Instructio” of 1964
underscored “the incursion, which occurred by revelation in the strong
sense, of the personal God in the world, as well as the possibility and
factuality of miracles and prophecies.” It also upheld that the disciples
“rightly understood the miracles as [real] deeds” (recte tanquam
facta).'”
We have thus been reminded once again of the concept of the fac-
tual. If the connection between fact and proclamation is recognized,
then the two cannot be detached from each other in the area of miracle.
The interpreter of the Bible must here, too, take his stand against the crit-
ical dogmatician who sees no “objective place” for miracle and narrows
the “concept of miracle” to a purely “subjective” notion.'4
Revelation indisputably proclaims that the miracles it relates actu-
ally took place. What kind of God would it be, anyway, who did not
really bring forth the created world (Ge 1 and 2); whose “right hand”
did not “shatter the enemy” at the Red Sea (Ex 15:6); who did not “do
 THE HISTORICAL NATURE (HISTORICALITY) OF SCRIPTURE @ 229

miracles before your fathers in Egypt” (Ps 78:12); who did not fulfill his
promises to Joshua and his fighting men so that it could be said, “Not
one of all the LORD’s good promises to the house of Israel failed; every
one was fulfilled” (Jos 21:45 NIv)! Had Jesus not worked actual mira-
cles, then the likes ‘of John 10:38; 20:30f.; 21:35; etc., are completely
unthinkable. Then the early Christian sermon to Israel about Jesus,
“accredited by God to you by miracles, wonders and signs, which God
did among you” (Ac 2:22 NIV) would never have taken place. With what
determination the Bible proclaims that miracles actually occurred is
seen in the reportage of the Jewish explanation of the empty tomb in
Matthew 28:11f., in the arraying of witnesses in 1 Corinthians 15:5ff.,
and in the depictions of various encounters with the resurrected Jesus.
Revelation tolerates objections (e.g.: Did it really happen? Did it hap-
pen that way? Isn’t it all “empty talk” [/éros; Lk 24:1]?) and answers
them (cf. Mt 28:17; Lk 24:11, 34, 38ff.; Jn 20:24ff.; Ac 17:32ff.).
Miracles cannot be relegated to a secondary level of the Gospels, as if
the oldest level knew nothing of them. Nor can the New Testament be
sliced up into miracle-friendly and miracle-hostile currents, as
Schmithals, among others, attempted.'** Miracle belongs to the most
ancient content. Without miracle there would be neither the Gospels nor
Old Testament revelation, apart from a few wisdom sayings perhaps. Not
even the reports of what Jesus’ opponents said would have been possi-
ble unless he had done miracles.'”°
The interpreter who works in the light of revelation will therefore
resist the temptation to distill from the miracle reports merely that which
pertains to the proclamation. He will rather exercise utmost care here,
too, in giving due consideration to both dimensions, the factual and the
kerygmatic. The pure proclaimer thinks ahistorically in principle.
Against this, our task is to engage in interpretation of miracles and make
it fruitful. They are, namely, attesting signs, mediating occurrences, that
point to the one who works them. They belong, therefore, in the revela-
tory sense to the encounter that God seeks with the person he addresses.
They lose their purpose when this encounter does not take place.
230 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

Schlatter commented that “miracle does not endanger the idea of causal-
ity”; it rather “confirms” it: “for by miracle we do not imagine an effect
without an effecter. We rather expressly apply the idea of causality since
we recognize God as the miracle worker in the miracle.”!” Schlatter
notes further that “nature” gives us no “cause to declare miracle impos-
sible.’ For nature receives its definition from God and thus becomes an
attesting sign pointing to the greater Person that gave it its definition.'”*
In fact, the human judgment of “possible” or “impossible” high-hand-
edly displaces the content of revelation. God then becomes an idol
which human thought brought forth. And conversely: it is a constituent
part of grace that God reveals himself in miracle—in his own time!

REVELATION AND PROPHECY

The problem of prophecy has always been closely linked with the prob-
lem of miracle. This connection can be readily explained in that true
prophecy is itself a miracle.
It is sufficient to say here in summary that the Bible’s fulfilled
prophecy was one of the stoutest pillars of Christian proclamation
through seventeen centuries.'”° It was held to be sufficiently convincing
to furnish the basis for the authority of Scripture.'°° The first handbook
of biblical hermeneutics that we know of in Christendom, Ticonius’s
Liber Regularum (ca. A.D. 382), originated in interaction with
prophecy.'*' Otherwise, prophecy also formed the root of hermeneutics
for the Qumran Essenes.'* Joachim of Fiore, Joachimism, the anabap-
tist movements, covenant theology, Pietism, nineteenth-century salva-
tion-history theology—these all used prophecy as normative basis. This
assessment of prophecy endures in many segments of Christendom still
today. In Catholicism the “Instructio” of the papal Bible commission
(1964), which we have already mentioned a number of times, defended
“the possibility and actuality of prophecies” (prophetiarum possibili-
tatem et existentiam).'* For evangelicals such a position is self-
evident.'**
 THE HISTORICAL NATURE (HISTORICALITY) OF SCRIPTURE ® 231

To what extent may one speak, then, of a “problem” of prophecy?

It becomes a problem at the moment that human reason and science
become the standard for what is possible. That takes place, notoriously,
in the Enlightenment. English Deism, which sees itself as the embodi-
ment of the hew scientific age, takes up the question, “How likely is it
that such a thing has actually taken place?” and takes offense at super-
natural prophecies.'** In addition, the Enlightenment glimpsed the goal
of history in the perfectibility of mankind. Here Lessing ventured a
prophecy of his own: “It will certainly come”—“the time of perfec-
tion.” A corresponding view from the Christian side saw the goal of
history to be the responsible (in the deepest sense), “moral” Christian.
The Latitudinarian J. Locke put it this way for us: “These two, faith and
repentance, i.e., believing Jesus to be the Messiah and a good life, are
the indispensable conditions of the new covenant.”'”’ But if salvation is
a matter of the moral perfection of man, then the Bible’s prophecy is no
longer needed, at least not so urgently. J. J. Mosheim (1755) demon-
strated this. He regarded as essential only those truths of the Bible nec-
essary for salvation. On the other hand, he continued, prophecies and
histories are nonessential.'** Among those following Semler’s line of
thought the verdict was more stringent. F. A. Stroth (1771) is totally
frank: “What good would it be to us to know that in a hundred years
Islam and Judaism will cease to exist?” “Would that make us more per-
fect or virtuous and more skillful in all good works?”'? Corrodi of
Ziirich argues (1781) along the same line: religion serves to further “the
enlightenment of human understanding and the perfection of
mankind.’° Transcendentally derived prophecy has no more place in
the context of “reasonable” and “true” understanding. Corrodi puts it
this way: “Faith in the gift of prophecy” is for the present time “extin-
guished.”"*! Thus it became necessary to understand that which the
prophet spoke in the name of God as simply the message of the prophet
himself. That comes to expression in virtually classic form in J.
Wellhausen, who once remarked of Isaiah, “When he spoke in the name
232 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

of Yahweh he proved to have an acute grasp of mankind and of the

human condition.”!”
The appeal to Yahweh, then, was a means to an end, and the “acute
grasp” does not come from God but from man. But if prophecy is sim-
ply human utterance, then it may be critiqued with impunity. Thus
Wellhausen charges that Ezekiel “lived in reminiscences and phan-
tasies.”'*? In Wellhausen’s view there was no such thing as God-given
prophecy about the future. The passion predictions in the Gospels are
therefore “inauthentic,” secondary: “Jesus’ disciples were in no way pre-
pared in advance for Jesus’ death?’'* The question of the extent to which
God divulged the future also caused severe reverberations in “positive”
theology, which tried to oppose Enlightenment “critical” theology by
pressing its critical tools and methods into the service of traditional
Christian theology. E.g., O. Zéckler regarded such detailed predictions
as Daniel 11 to be impossible.'** The temptations of the era come bril-
liantly to light in the work of Franz Delitzsch (1813-90). In his intro-
duction to the third edition of his Isaiah commentary (1879), he
describes the relation of the critic to prophecy with these words:

For critics it is impossible that in Hezekiah’s time

Isaiah predicted the universal dominance of Babylon
and its fall to the Medes and Persians. Hitzig affirms
plainly that the very same caligo futuri [dimness
regarding the future] that was the bane of the human
race during the time of the oracle at Delphi also cov-
ered the eyes of the Old Testament prophets in gen-
eral. Ewald speaks of the prophets with
incomparably more optimism, but for him the
prophetic state is still nothing more than the flam-
ing-up of the natural spark that slumbers in every
person. The modern critic finds himself squeezed
between a pair of pre-judgments: there is no genuine
prophecy, and there are no actual miracles.'*°
 THE HISTORICAL NATURE (HISTORICALITY) OF SCRIPTURE @ 233

It cannot be said that these two prejudgments have vanished in

recent times. For F. Hesse (1966), e.g., only the “basic promise” of the
Old Testament (“I will be your God; you shall be my people”) is the
“divine word.” All elseis purely human “concretization” of that “basic
promise. 17" Brom that starting point Hesse explains the concrete
“prophecies” of the Old Testament as human; prophecy is “capable of
error’ and also “factually proven to be erroneous”; it “could not proph-
esy” the fact of Christ.'** If the New and Old Testament are compared,
the New Testament salvation event “simply cannot be squared with the
Old Testament prophecies.”'*? In concrete terms, then, the prophecies
were false. This outlook makes its presence felt in modern dogmatics as
well.'°° F. Hesse also serves to show how the critique of prophecy is of
a piece with the critique of revelation in general. For at the most basic
level Hesse says of the biblical statements according to which God
allegedly revealed himself to Moses and to the patriarchs: “It is clear to
us that we cannot believe these stories as they stand.’'’' But if Old
Testament prophecy fails the truth test through the fact of Christ, then
it is no longer credible regarding the future, either. Hesse even says that
the future announced in the Old Testament will “never become fact.”!?
In spite of all this, many remain aware that the Old Testament
prophet understands himself as a prophet and traces his message
“expressly and unambiguously back to entirely definite objective
revelations.”'?
Two chief currents, then, were important for the dismantling of the
earlier conception of prophecy. One, rooted in a particular view of the
world, saw no more possibility for “supernatural” prophecy given the
framework of a natural and rational causal nexus. The second, rooted in
an ideal for mankind, saw no more necessity of such prophecy given the
ultimate goal of human perfectibility.
We are now in position to clarify the problem of prophecy through
more precise reflection. Leading questions are: Just what is “prophecy”?
What is the nature of its relation to the causal nexus as we understand
it? To what extent is it necessary for revelation and for Christian procla-
234 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

mation? How do Old Testament prophecy and New Testament fulfill-

ment relate to one another? What about Bible prophecies that have yet
to be fulfilled?
From the purely human standpoint nothing definitive can be said
about the possibility, the necessity, or the essential nature of prophecy
in itself. It could indeed be the case that we are dealing here with a
sharply pointed instance of something “entirely different.” If anywhere,
then it would be fitting here to query “revelation” carefully as to the
claims that it makes.
Prophecy in the broader sense is the passing along of God’s utter-
ances through persons. “Let the one who has my word speak it faith-
fully” (Jer 23:28 NIV)—those are the instructions for a true prophet.
Isaiah and Amos take their stand entirely on this basis: “T tell you what
I have heard / from the LORD Almighty, / from the God of Israel” (Isa
21:10 NIV; cf. Am 3:8).
The formula “thus says the Lord” (coh ‘amar Yahweh) refers
repeatedly to this basic structure. God assures hesitant chosen prophets,
“Behold, I place my words in your mouth” (Ex 4:12; Jer 1:9). If the word
is passed along, then it is not actually the word of Jeremiah or some
other prophet himself; it rather remains the word of the Lord (Isa
55:10f.; Mt 1:22, among other fulfillment citations). It is not arbitrary
to be reminded here of Paul Ricoeur’s judgment, based on Jeremiah 2:1,
that the idea of revelation comes out most pristinely in prophecy.'** Here
there must be a sharp distinction between what the prophet passes on
“in truth” (Jer 23:28) and the self-understanding of the prophet. The
prophet may feel his office to be a burden (Jer 15:10ff.). He may deny
it for a time (Jonah). He may understand what is said only with great dif-
ficulty (Da 7:15ff.). He may even sin and be lost (Balaam, the prophet
in 1Ki 13:11f.). None of this affects the fact that God spoke through their
mediation (cf. in the New Testament Jn 11:51f.). What characterizes the
prophet is not “his human, prophetic, and authorial stature?’'%> as
German idealism falsely thought. It is rather the “truly” given commis-
sion that makes him a mediator of God’s revelation. It is the “illumina-
 THE HISTORICAL NATURE (HISTORICALITY) OF SCRIPTURE @ 235

tion” through which God transmits to him what he has in mind. This
basic structure may be traced right into the New Testament, where Jesus,
taking up the Old Testament “servant of God” and “friend of God”
motifs, calls his disciples “friends” and justifies his act by saying, “For
everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you” (Jn
15:15 NIV). Under this broadened concept there is profound homogene-
ity shared among Moses, other prophets of the old covenant, and the
prophets and apostles of the new covenant.
In a narrower sense, prophecy is the conveying of divine predic-
tions of the future. As with prophecy in the more general sense, so also
here the distinction between true and false prophecy arises. It is inter-
esting to note that the common conviction of several prophets is not a
standard of truth. Quite often the true prophet stands alone against an
entire council of false prophets (e.g., Nu 16; 1Ki 22; Jer 23:9ff.).
Revelation takes up the question of the standard of distinction. God’s
people need orientation points and should not remain in darkness. One
of the most ancient standards is the attesting sign. In order to refute the
charge that “the LORD did not appear to you” (Ex 4:1), Moses receives
the power to effect such signs. They accompany the entire Exodus.
Moses himself can demonstrate his authenticity through special signs.
At the rebellion of many Levites, Moses says in almost “Johannine” lan-
guage, “This is how you will know that the LORD has sent me... : If
these men die a natural death . . . then the LORD has not sent me” (Nu
16:28f. NIV). To the question “How can we know when a message has
not been spoken by the LORD?”’, the answer is that the word of the Lord
comes to pass; it comes true (Dt 18:21f.). And what if even bogus pre-
dictions come to pass? What if false prophets imitate those who are truly
from God, the only One who can announce the future according to
Isaiah 41:22ff.; 42:9; 43:9ff.? Then revelation holds a further standard
in reserve. According to Deuteronomy 13:2ff., the false prophet whose
predictions come true is not to be heeded as soon as it becomes clear
that he is promoting idolatry.'** Yet what is it that unmasks him as an
236 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

idolater? The context of Deuteronomy 13:1 permits only one answer: his
breach of the previously revealed divine word.
It is easy to document the same structure in the New Testament.
Among other roles, Jesus fills that of a prophet (Mt 16:14; 24:1ff.; Jn
2:18ff.; 4:19; 6:14; 9:17; Lk 24:19). Immediately the question of his
legitimacy arises. Is he a true or false prophet (i.e., a deceiver)? A sign
is demanded of him (Mt 12:38; 16:1; Jn 2:18). Jesus gives to both his
opposition and his disciples the requested signs (Mt 12:39; 14:33; 16:4;
Lk 11:20; Jn 7:17; 10:38).'” Even his opponents must acknowledge the
realization of certain signs (Jn 3:2; 11:47; Mt 12:22f.).'* After Jesus
passed the test of Deuteronomy 18:20ff., the only possibility remaining
was to try him according to Deuteronomy 13:2ff. The majority of the
Jewish leaders, after initial wavering, opted for this procedure. Jesus was
executed on the cross as a “deceiver” (Mt 27:63; cf. Jn 8:48). The
Talmud confirms this with the frank statement: “Because he practiced
magic and enticed and stampeded Israel,’ “they hanged Jesus on the
evening before the passover feast.”'*° After his resurrection, however, the
disciples made use of the basis which even their opponents could not
dispute, namely, that of Deuteronomy 18:20ff. They proclaimed Jesus,
who was “accredited by God to you by miracles, wonders and signs” (Ac :
2:22 NIV; 10:38). They broadened this basis, however, using two essen-
tial elements. One was the constant reference to God, who by Jesus’ res-
urrection had shown that Jesus was truly sent from God, so that
Deuteronomy 13:2ff. could not be applied to him (Ac 2:24ff.; 3:13ff.;
4:10ff.; 10:40ff.). The second element was the proof that in Jesus Old
Testament prophecy was fulfilled, even down to predictions of his suf-
fering (Ac 2:25ff.; 3:21ff.). Stephen went a step farther and charged that
Israel’s leaders consistently persecuted the prophets, so that Jesus’ per-
secution was practically an attesting sign of his legitimacy (Ac 7:5 1ff.;
cf. however also Mt 23:29ff., 37ff.).
Can, then, the thesis that the New Testament cannot be squared
with the prophecy of the Old Testament continue to be affirmed so
facilely? Not when it is considered that the above claims were not bits
 THE HISTORICAL NATURE (HISTORICALITY) OF SCRIPTURE @ 237

of Gentile Christian artfulness but rather modes of argumentation

applied by Jews, some rabbinically educated—their line continues as
late as the Palestine-born Justin (d. ca. A.D. 165)—with thoroughgoing
success.
This is the point where we must once more return to the New
Testament. We discover first that Jesus understood himself as an
Israelite, a Jew. “Only ahistorical fantasy affirms that Jesus separated
himself from Israel.’' That means, however, that when he appeared he
must have clarified his relation to prophecy and to the entire “Old
Testament.” It would be fair to surmise this even if we knew nothing
about it in particular. But we do: the Gospels give us just information
enough. Like other teachers of Israel, Jesus acknowledged the Holy
Scriptures without modification (Mt 5:17ff.; Jn 10:35). What he dis-
puted was the Jewish Halacha (interpretative tradition). And even that
he did not reject in an undifferentiated fashion, as Matthew 23:2f.
shows.'*! Schlatter rightly emphasized that one cannot begin here with
isolated proofs. Jesus establishes “the connection between his and
Israel’s Scripture not only through individual words . . . but he relates
the entire history and Scripture of Israel to himself and his office:”!
Therefore he assumes the title of the messianic redeemer, like Messiah,
Son of David, Son of Man, and makes Scripture the standard rather than
the Halacha (Mt 9:13; 12:3, 5; 15:3ff.; 21:12ff.; 22:23-46; Jn 3:13ff.;
5:39; 10:34ff.). From Scripture, not from nationalistic expectation, he
derives his suffering and resurrection (Mt 12:40; 16:21ff.; 21:42; 26:56;
Lk 24:25ff., 44ff.; Jn 3:13ff.; 13:18). Now, with his coming, the time is
fulfilled which the fathers and the prophets yearned for as the time of
redemption (Jn 8:56; Lk 4: 16ff.; Mt 9:15ff.; 13:16f.). No wonder that all
the New Testament writers—nearly all Jews!—glimpsed in Jesus the
prophesied Messiah.'® We find here no trace of that opinion that the so-
called Christ fact does not correspond to prophecy, or that the prophecy
turns out to be false even respecting concrete fact. Should someone,
however, regard all these statements by New Testament authors as fic-
tions, as attempts to show correspondence where none actually exists,
238 @® BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

then the words of Joh. Dav. Michaelis (1717-91) should be recalled.

Michaelis characterized the situation of Jesus’ disciples among their
contemporaries as follows:

It would be a totally unbelievable impudence for

someone who had formerly spent time with people
to write to them later, ‘I did miracles in your pres-
ence; indeed, you received ability from me to do
miracles and to speak in strange tongues, if nothing
of the sort had occurred. Such impudence would
bring its perpetrator into immediate disgrace in the
eyes of his correspondents, and eventually in the
eyes of the whole world—especially if those to
whom he wrote had doubts about his teaching or
were prejudiced against him.'*

Revelation does not therefore deny us an answer to the question

before us. It defines prophecy for us as the passing on of divine utter-
ances. It shows us the prophet as the essential mediator of this divine
revelation. Obviously prophecy, as mediator “between the secret and the
revealed,’'® cannot be dismissed without revelation as factually
entrusted to us collapsing like a house of cards. With Schlatter and
Ricoeur we do not hesitate to characterize the occurrence of this
prophecy as “‘supranatural.”'®* Such prophecy itself determines the con-
ditions of its manifestation.
In view of the causal nexus, the same can be said here as was said
about miracles. It is not feasible to argue based on the created order
against the Creator who brings about that order. Whoever judges
prophecy as questionable or even impossible based on a humanly estab-
lished notion of a closed causal nexus is proceeding rashly. The dog-
matic notion of the creatio continua (continuity of creation) is helpful
here in that it takes account of the Creator’s continuing activity. Creation
came to be through the word (Heb 11:3). Who wishes to banish this
 THE HISTORICAL NATURE (HISTORICALITY) OF SCRIPTURE @ 239

word from creation? God has rather granted to creation the ongoing
reception of his word (Isa 55:10f.). Only an atheistic causal nexus would
be an opponent of prophecy.
Also prophecy in the narrower sense, i.e., the announcement of
things to come, may not be excluded by appeal to what is allegedly ““pos-
sible” or “impossible:’ God places the prophet on his watchtower (cf.
Hab 2:1), where there is neither a forgotten past nor an unknown future.
Where God is, our time comes to an end. What is future—in human
understanding—is seen and taken up by the prophet as present. He who
can alter “times and seasons” (Da 2:21), who shortens the days for the
sake of his elect (Mt 24:22), who created time (Ge 1:14) and will one
day terminate it (Rev 10:6), is not bound by our time (Ps 90:4; 2Pe 3:8).
He is eternal (Ps 90:2). “Tomorrow” is within reach of him “today”—
humanly speaking (1Ki 22:19ff.)! The prophet draws this “future’”—
again speaking humanly—into the present of the people of God (Rev
1:1-3—3:19). And in that this future is manifested in the present, it
begins to leave its impress on the present. This announcement of the
future remains, however, strictly connected to the self-revealing God.
Prophecy is not about our perfection but about God’s plan coming to
pass and about God’s honor. That is why both are closely bound together
in Isaiah 42:8f.: God will not give his honor to another, and he proclaims
that which is new. Humanism feels that divine prophecy is an enemy of
human autonomy and therefore rejects it.
On the other hand, there is prophecy that vouchsafes itself with
signs. It becomes a sign for us itself. Jesus says repeatedly to his disci-
ples: “I am telling you now before it happens, so that when it does hap-
pen you will believe that lam He” (Jn 13:19 NIV; cf. Mt 24:25; Jn 14:29;
16:1, 4). Predictive prophecy, therefore, is a handmaiden of faith. Its ful-
fillment confirms the truth of the divine message. That applies first to
the relation of New and Old Testament. That also applies, however, in
view of the occurrences that Jesus prophesied. The statement of Hesse'”
must, therefore, be totally inverted: because Old Testament prophecy
became “fact” according to the testimony of the New Testament,
240 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

prophecy that is not yet fulfilled—of both the Old and New
Testament!—will also become a “fact.”
But that is not yet the whole story. We must rather fill out the pic-
ture through a look at the pedagogical role played precisely by predic-
tive prophecy. Without its warning the Christian community could not
withstand the battle with false teaching, could not see through contem-
porary ideological currents, could not formulate confessions. Such
prophecy also leaves an essential impress on the unfolding of doctrine.
And most of all: it gives firm ground for hope. For hardly anything is
more dangerous than for hope to become abstract and bloodless. As one
of the most important pedagogues, predictive prophecy—so often
ridiculed as “eschatological roadmap,’ “apocalyptic fantasy,’ or a
pitiable literary genre—sees to it that God’s people can take sure steps
into the future. When the heavenly jubilation of the redeemed breaks out
(Rev 7:9ff.; 19:1ff.), then thanksgiving for that jubilation’s harbinger
and precedent, prophecy, will receive its due.

REVELATION, CHRONOLOGY, AND NUMBERS

Chronology and numbers are an unmistakable indication of the histor-
ical nature of the Bible. At the same time they point to the ongoing
nature of revelation, or “progressive revelation.”
In his 1956 Jordan Lectures David Daube mentioned a rabbinic
rule: “There is no before and after in Scripture.’'** He used Exodus 15
as an illustrative example of this rule, where the death of the enemy is
reported first and then later what the enemy said (cf. Ex 15:9 with
15:4ff.). Another example is Ezekiel 2, which chronologically must
come before Ezekiel 1.'°° Daube suspects that that the Gospel writers
may possibly have taken up this rabbinic rule.™
Careful investigation of the Lucan prologue (Lk 1:1—4) gives addi-
tional pointers in this direction. The two terms akribdés and kathechés
in Luke 1:3 do not necessarily refer to chronological arrangement, as
Sneen demonstrates.” Even if kathechés does connote “in order?”
 THE HISTORICAL NATURE (HISTORICALITY) OF SCRIPTURE ® 241

which is not yet established,” it is still possible that “order of signifi-

cance”™ is what the author intended, an arrangement appropriate to the
significance of the events and not to their chronological order. Blomberg
has underscored this “topical” rather than “temporal sequence.”
Blomberg draws the conclusion that it is therefore “methodologically
inconsistent to infer chronology from mere narrative sequence, even
where no potential conflicts with parallels arise.” Interestingly,
Augustine was also convinced that the Gospels do not always report
chronologically.”
On the other hand, we observe that the Bible has an uncommon
interest in chronological determination, which typically distinguishes it
from other “religious” literature, even, e.g., from the Koran.
This chronological organization begins already with the structure
of the canon. The postexilic writings do not stand at the beginning of
the so-called Old Testament but rather primarily at the end. And in the
Pentateuch it is precisely not the patriarchal narratives or the Exodus that
stands at the start but the report of the beginnings of creation and of his-
tory. This corresponds to what we find in the New Testament. It is the
story of Jesus that forms the beginning of the New Testament, not the
temporally later event, presumably circa A.D. 95, of the vision received
on Patmos. The Spirit who created this entire work of revelation fol-
lowed, then, the idea of a principally historical-chronological order.
What that means just for the history of ideas can hardly be measured.
From this starting point we can follow the chronological organi-
zation right down into individual groups of texts. A classic example is
again the Pentateuch. It originates with the origin of life, depicts the
course of primal history (cf. the genealogies), follows the course of the
patriarchal history, and finally, from Exodus to Deuteronomy, sketches
the history of Israel down to the death of Moses. The enormous mass of
commandments contained in the Pentateuch did not destroy this chrono-
logical structure. Just how important the idea of a chronologically
ordered sequence is may be seen in Deuteronomy 26:5ff. This credo
became a central component of Israel’s confession of faith.
242 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

A second, no less impressive classic example is the innumerable

references to dates in the prophetic books. The Old Testament contains
the genre “prophetic narrative.” That is, the historical activity and suf-
fering of a prophet (Elijah, Elisha, etc.) is set forth in an approximate
chronological framework. Where entire books bear the name of a prophet
one finds both direct and indirect, approximate and exact, references to
dates (to cite just a few examples: Isa 1:1; 2:1; 6:1; 7:1; 14:28; 20:1; 36:1;
39:1). We encounter nothing different in the New Testament. The story
of Jesus can be synchronized and thus dated in relation to Herod, the
Baptist, and Pilate (cf. Mt 2:1, 19; 3:1; 27:2; Lk 1:5; 2:1f.; 3:1ff.; 23:1ff,
7ff.), even if an uncertainty of three years remains regarding the exact
time of Jesus’ death (A.D. 30? Or A.D. 33?). The book of Acts again
shows a basically chronological construction and permits a rough dating
of Paul’s activity (especially Ac 18:12ff.). Paul’s letters can be divided
into Prison Epistles and epistles whose setting is prior to his imprison-
ment. A comparison with Acts aids, e.g., in establishing 1 Thessalonians
as one of the earliest, if not the very earliest, letter of Paul.
Other observations, however, appear to contradict the chronolog-
ical interest of revelation as we have just sketched it. This may be said,
first, of the structure within larger groups of texts. Thus the Minor
Prophet corpus (twelve prophets in all) unites prophets from three cen-
turies, from Hosea (ca. 750 B.C.) to Malachi (ca. 480-450 B.c.). True, it
appears to follow a chronological order within itself. But it came to
stand after Ezekiel because it was placed into the sequence of prophetic
books according to its closing portion, the book of Malachi. That means
that within the Hebrew canon Hosea, which may be placed in the mid-
eighth century B.C., follows Ezekiel, who prophesied in the sixth cen-
tury. Here thematic organization (“twelve minor prophets”) takes
precedence over chronological considerations (Hosea actually prophe-
sied before Ezekiel). The same applies to the Pauline corpus. It is obvi-
ously not arranged chronologically. Otherwise,.as far as we know, 1
Thessalonians would have to come first, with Acts immediately after it.
Instead thematic considerations reign. They dictate that the letters
 THE HISTORICAL NATURE (HISTORICALITY) OF SCRIPTURE @ 243

addressed to congregations be grouped together (Romans through

Thessalonians), and that the longest come first within this division.
What we see within the larger text-groups is repeated in the
smaller ones. Thus we find in the Gospels certain arrangements that are
clearly thematic. Parables of Jesus, e. g., are brought together in special
parable chapters (Mt 13; Mk 4). Or to cite a further well known exam-
ple: what Matthew presented in one individual context as the Sermon
on the Mount, Luke presented over the course of several chapters. The
Gospel writers felt a freedom, therefore, to work within thematic rather
than chronological parameters. This observation agrees with what we
said above regarding the rabbis. It is interesting that students of the apos-
tles related that Mark did not give a chronologically ordered presenta-
tion.'* Because chronological and thematic viewpoints stand side by
side, it is difficult for us to determine whether John 2:13ff. pictures a
second temple cleansing, or whether John placed the incident at the
beginning of his gospel for thematic reasons. We can also observe
within an individual pericope that it is not temporal succession but the-
matic interest that determines and organizes the story. In Jonah 3, e.g.,
one can see that it is the command of the king, serving in his role as
priest, that effected the general repentance of the inhabitants of Nineveh.
Chronologically, then, the events of Jonah 3:6—9 predate those of Jonah
3:5. Also in Jonah: The third clause of 1:10 temporally precedes the sec-
ond, and the second for its part precedes the first. Jonah conveys a mes-
sage, the sailors gain awareness thereby resulting in fear and
interrogation. Here scholars speak of a “backward facing style” of the
Hebrew language. If this peculiarity is noticed, then there can be no
more talk of contradiction because of the sequence of events on the
stormy lake (Mt 8:23ff.; Mk 4:35ff.). True, Matthew first records the
question about “‘ittle faith” (8:26), then the stilling of the storm, while
Mark’s order is opposite: first the quieting of the storm (4:39), then the
question to the disciples about their deficient faith. If, however, one or
even both of the Gospel writers were working from a primarily thematic
basis, then we should not expect chronological precision in the depic-
244 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

tion of the course of events!” Now we understand better why some rab-
bis said that in Scripture there is no “before” and no “after.”
We must therefore proceed from the fact that chronological and the-
matic viewpoints together determine the arrangement of biblical state-
ments. What are the consequences of this? #1) First, it is still true that
overall the chronologically ordered course of occurrences is predomi-
nant. Scripture is rooted in the origins of creation and leads to the
prophetically manifested goal of salvation history. #2) Further,
Scripture’s references to dates are not to be moved about at will. Where
such references show up, they are a part of revelation that is to be taken
seriously. #3) Nevertheless, within Scripture’s overall chronological scaf-
folding there are numerous cases in which arrangement is thematic, not
chronological. This becomes clear in view of the Gospel narratives. In
all four New Testament Gospels we find an unalterable fivefold frame-
work: introduction (e.g., John the Baptist), early days of Jesus’ ministry,
interactions and disputes, passion, resurrection. This comprises the skele-
tal structure of the overall report. But within the individual categories the
Gospel writer is free to organize material either chronologically or the-
matically. #4) A fourth consequence is that we must exercise utmost cau-
tion in attempting to establish dates where the Bible itself gives no precise
information. Precisely, New Testament research has taught us to handle
individual pericopes first of all as small discrete units. #5) In agreement
with Blomberg'*® we must emphasize that no contradiction is to be
deduced from varying arrangements of events or accounts. Talk of “‘con-
tradictions” thereby loses considerable foundation just in view of the dif-
ferent narrative possibilities of Scripture.
Concerning numbers in the Bible, their significance is generally hotly
disputed. Here we can set aside chronological information, which we have
already discussed. It will suffice to glean some wisdom from church his-
tory, in particular a few of J. A. Bengel’s infelicitous calculations. Bengel
regarded the Bible’s numbers as its skeleton in a quite literal sense: “I think
that . . . what the skeletal system is to anatomy, biblical chronology is for
the knowledge of redemptive truth:’'*' When Bengel set Jesus’ return at
 THE HISTORICAL NATURE (HISTORICALITY) OF SCRIPTURE @ 245

1836, he overstepped the biblical boundaries set for us by Matthew 24:36

and Acts 1:7. This boundary is not to be dismissed with the explanation
that the earthly Jesus did not know the time and hour, while the exalted
Jesus did know them and passed them along to the prophet who wrote the
book of Revelation. The chronology of the Bible cannot facilely be
extended into the eschaton. Nor can it, however, be facilely projected back
into the mists of temporal origins. What lies back beyond the Fall eludes
all description from the side of fallen mankind. Therefore we no longer
know the age of the world, the first dates of creation and of history.
What about symbolic numbers? Here too the boundaries of inter-
pretation are discernible. One boundary is the fact that the Bible doubt-
less makes use of such numbers, e.g., at Matthew 1:17, and very probably
also at John 21:11. Few will doubt that the number 7 contains and
expresses spiritual import. A second boundary is cautionary: the dan-
ger of speculation regarding such numbers is especially great. That goes
for liberal interpretation just as much as for conservative. Between these
two boundaries lies a great host of cases where various views are plau-
sible even within the church itself. Context is often useful in arriving at
a resolution. Thus the number 2 in Zechariah 4:14, or 7 in Zechariah
4:10 and Revelation 1:20, is explained more fully. Other numbers are
intentionally not explained. E.g., we are not certain to this very day what
666 in Revelation 13:18 means. Overall, strict restraint should be exer-
cised in the interpretation of symbolic or allegedly symbolic numbers
when a supporting contextual basis is absent.

IN WHAT SENSE IS THE BIBLE HISTORICAL?

It is worthwhile to restate a few basic thoughts.
1. We started with the mysterium of the transitio revelationis, i.e.,
the mystery of the transition of divine revelation into human history.
This secret is not to be resolved by taking a stand on either end of two
extremes. Some do this from the human side, seeing in the Bible a mere
document of history, a book with errors and contradictions, or even a
246 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

book just like any other. Some do this from the divine side, regarding
the Bible as the product of spiritual ecstasy, an esoteric document for a
few specially qualified persons, or a message originating beyond history.
2. As revelation thoroughly integrated into history, the Bible chal-
lenges us to historical investigation and interpretation. Broad stretches
of it are patent of historical verification. The advantages of historical
investigation of the Bible lie in the expansion of our cognitive under-
standing, in apologetic as well as missionary conviction of its reliabil-
ity, in the methodological accessibility of a doctrinal consensus, in a
conveying of its content in pedagogically effective ways, and in the cor-
rection of mistaken paths that appear through a primarily dynamic-
direct or even spiritual application of the Bible.
3. The historical nature of the Bible means, moreover, that it mir-
rors in itself a historical progression. It reveals to us, so to speak, the
steps that God’s self-revelation has taken in the course of earthly his-
tory. It possesses an unimpeachable chronological structure. It thereby
forces us to distinguish that which is distinct to each given specific tem-
poral zone of God’s activity. Whoever mixes statements of revelation
from the various ages is sure to arrive at mistaken interpretations.
4. The transition from eternity to temporality also means, however,
that revelation appears ambivalent and can be interpreted variously. It
caii be rejected and accepted, rightly and wrongly understood. In this
essential ambivalence lies its servant form. This servant form does not,
as is often claimed, consist in some necessary proneness to error and
mistake. It would however be disastrous if we nullified God’s decision
in favor of this ambivalence and sought to flee to a storm-free world
beyond history and historical research.'*
5. Finally, as symbolic numbers showed us, the historical meaning
of a biblical statement presents no impediment to a sensus plenior
(deeper meaning).'* Historical and spiritual interpretation condition and
supplement each other. Anyone who makes monopolistic use of the his-
torical, or any other sole interpretative approach, subjects revelation to
a restriction that is quite foreign to it.
 . (CHAPTER TWELVE

Revelation
and Criticism

DEFINING HISTORICAL CRITICISM

In an inaugural lecture (published in 1984) in Basel, Switzerland,
Joachim Latacz recounted the highlights of a famous debate in classical
scholarship dealing with the ancient Greek poet Homer.' It all started,
Latacz reports, when in 1795 Friedrich August Wolf asked, “Can the two
great early Greek epics the /liad and the Odyssey—the first about
16,000, the second about 12,000 hexameters in length—have come from
one author each, or one author only? Wolf and his students answered:
no. Two considerations speak against it. First, the works exhibit logical
and stylistic contradictions in their structure and narrative form. Second,
their authorship cannot have succeeded with the aid of writing, because
at that time writing did not exist.’ The /liad and the Odyssey “were
rather pieced together by a number of poets in the course of a long tra-
dition process.” Soon the work of from two to twenty hands was dis-
cerned—“depending on the ingenuity of the scholar making the
analysis.” “The outcome: from Friedrich August Wolf to Gottfried
Hermann, Karl Lachmann, Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff,
248 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

Wolfgang Schadewaldt, and Karl Reinhardt, to many others right down

to Peter Von der Miihll, there came to be as many Homers as there were
Homer experts. The public . . . was helpless. It no longer knew what it
was reading: where Homer was speaking in the Iliad, where other
bards—earlier, later, contemporary—where the hands of poetasters,
interpolaters, would-be poets were in evidence. And then: was
Wilamowitz’s Homer the real one? Or how about the Homer of Von der
Miihll? Or did the real truth lie in the view that objective criteria of dif-
ferentiation were demonstrably mistaken because of the failure of all
those analysts to come to a consensus? Was the whole controversy just
a tiresome game?”
If we replace the name “Homer” with “Moses,” the title Odyssey
with “Pentateuch,’ and the names of Homer scholars with Pentateuch
critics, then we have a fairly precise picture of the course of historical
criticism as applied to the Bible, which has run parallel to Homer
research in the last two hundred years in astonishing fashion.”
This criticism, which characterizes itself as “historical criticism”
or “historical-critical investigation” or “historical-critical method(s),”
today dominates Western and ecumenical theology. Moreover, it is com-
mended to us as the best, most appropriate, and most promising means
of opening up the meaning of the Gospel.
If we desire to enter a discussion on this subject that extends
beyond the German-speaking realm, we must first touch on the problem
of definition with which especially English-language usage presents us.
Conservative, even fundamentalist theologians defend “historical criti-
cism.” “Historical criticism” serves as a bulwark against obscurantism,
subjectivism, and inappropriate allegorization.? The demand therefore
arises: “[T]he Christian cannot deny the legitimacy of historical criti-
cism’*—“historical criticism . . . should be supported and encouraged.”s
Characteristic here is Clark Pinnock’s The Scripture Principle (1984).
Pinnock defends the inspiration and authority of Scripture and likewise
its “inerrancy.” At the same time, however, he casts his vote for “posi-
tive criticism.” In all these uses “criticism” means careful scientific
 REVELATION AND CRITICISM @ 249

investigation. “Historical criticism” amounts to “historical research.”

But that is not what the German theologian, influenced by his own pecu-
liar history, denotes when he speaks of “historical criticism.’ The con-
cepts “historical” and “critical” are not, therefore, simply congruent.
This shows’itself in the concern some express to distance “historical
criticism” from “radical criticism” or “German rationalism?”
In what follows we proceed from that form of “historical criti-
cism” that developed before and during the Enlightenment into a fun-
damental theological modus operandi.

AN “INTELLECTUAL DESTINY”?

Emanuel Hirsch thought that the rise of historical criticism was our
“intellectual destiny.” It was inevitable. The view that “we can no longer
go back to being without it” is one of the most broadly held opinions,
also among so-called evangelical theologians.'° This furnishes a basis
from which the theological right to apply historical criticism is derived.
Richter could still write in 1971: “The right to make use of historical
criticism is today . . . undisputed in the area of theological thought.”!!
Here is it clear on all sides that “criticism” entails not only the (self-evi-
dent!) task of differentiation but also a “critical” judgment of the bibli-
cal statements. This “criticism” affirms or rejects those statements; in a
word, it is content criticism (Sachkritik) of the Bible.'* Some authors go
as far as E. Kasemann and E. Grasser, who hold that the historical-crit-
ical method “factually” divides science from speculation or primi-
tivism.'? More conservative interpreters content themselves with
mentioning that the “historical-critical outlook” (almost always in the
singular!) has “its entirely definite boundaries.’’* We will have to pose
the question, therefore, whether this criticism of revelation is actually
an intellectual destiny—or rather a disaster. Yet we may not stop with
this question, which can be finessed, but must push ahead to the ulti-
mately decisive question of whether and how criticism actually relates
to revelation.
250 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

THE DANGER OF MORALISTIC JUDGMENTS

The discussion to be taken up here is not only burdened with problems
concerning definition. Moral judgments and objections also pose diffi-
culties. Many advocates of historical criticism emphasize their love of
truth and feel themselves “obligated solely to knowledge of the truth.’
True, we seldom encounter any more the overblown eulogies once
heaped on D. F. Strauss for his “thirst for truth, love for truth, devotion
to truth,’ “his uprightness,” and “his morality:’'* It is nevertheless strik-
ing that students of A. Jiilicher (1857-1934) honored him as the model
“educator . . . for strict veracity and objectivity,’” and that Bultmann by
his own admission “encountered the seriousness of radical veracity in
liberal theology:’'® Thus even conservative researchers arrived at the
conviction that “historical critical research . . . fulfills . .. a simple obli-
gation to truth.”
Those not embracing historical criticism were seen as less than
objective and truthful. D. F. Strauss, caught up, it is true, in polemical
language more common in the nineteenth century, accused the conser-
vative scholar Hengstenberg “of pious vileness.””° Strauss regarded him
as “outside the pale of science” while at the same time according
“moral dignity” to himself and his teacher F. C. Baur.?' Even harder
blows were aimed at A. Schlatter, who was cannily wary of historical
criticism, by E. v. Dobschiitz in 1927: Schlatter’s “interpretive ideal . . .
is dilettantish’’” And more bitter still was G. Ebeling’s blast leveled at
Hans Asmussen (1950) when Asmussen defended the unity of the book
of Isaiah (Ebeling was not an Old Testament scholar): “This primitively
dogmatic argumentation, which in general does not even betray a pre-
cise knowledge of the general opinion of the Old Testament research
that it battles against, is not only bereft of sober exegetical labor. It also
tacitly incorporates a fundamental No to the historical-critical
method.” Later in the same article Ebeling called opponents of histor-
ical criticism “internally untruthful”; they work “‘to say the least in an
unreflected, inconsistent fashion:”* We have seen the outcry against
 REVELATION AND CRITICISM @ 251

“primitivism” directed against the opponents of historical criticism

again in 1980 by E. Grisser.”
The other side certainly did not take all this lying down. Both sides
inflicted wounds. But because of the influence and dominance that his-
torical criticism had won in the nineteenth century, the verdict of dis-
honest, ignorant, and unscientific hung over all who opposed it,
generating fear. In any case this conflict, waged on a moral and injuri-
ous level, shows that historical criticism by no means involves mere
technicalities and procedural issues. It rather touches “the deepest foun-
dations and most difficult connections of theological thought and eccle-
siastical existence.””* To that extent G. Ebeling proved to be correct.

THE HISTORY OF HISTORICAL CRITICISM

The history of historical criticism reveals to us the basic tenets of this

mighty movement. Many volumes have been written about this history.
In the scope of our presentation we can attempt no more than a few
sketchy and quite condensed remarks.”
In 1966 Klaus Scholder offered the following summary of his
investigation of biblical criticism’s origins: “The development of histor-
ical-critical theology—doubtless one of the most important events in
recent theological history—has until now never been presented in con-
text?’?* It is an “event of inestimable import.”? Many agree with this judg-
ment. Thus, e.g., Ebeling spoke of a hermeneutical “turning point.”*°
It is sometimes supposed that natural scientists brought things to
this turning point. That is true, if at all, only in a very limited sense.
Galileo, e.g., explained in 1615 (writing to Christine von Toscana) that
the Scripture is free of error when interpreted according to its own sense.
It appears that many natural scientists saw a long-term solution in some
form of accommodation theory.*!
Le Brun, however, cited three different causes for historical criti-
cism: #1) Catholic skepticism, #2) application of reason to the Bible
(rationalism), and #3) a “novel Protestant theology.”
252 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

Doubtless, the Catholic skepticism arose not from some craze to

criticize but rather from love for the (Catholic) Church. W. G. Kiimmel
begins his book on the history of New Testament research? with
Richard Simon (1638-1712). Simon himself explains he will “take
sides only with the truth” and at the same time faithfully “follow the
Catholic faith”’* The “truth of religion” does not, however, lie in the
Bible but “in the church:”> The “extensive alterations that were made to
the biblical text?’ many of which he detected and investigated, “com-
pletely destroy,’ he thinks, “the [Scripture] principle of Protestant and
Socinian alike, who focus exclusively on just these manuscripts of the
Bible.’** The Protestant insistence that “Scripture is clear in the light of
itself” can no longer be sustained.” Simon thus pushed aside the
Scripture principle (sola scriptura) of the Reformation. He stands firmly
within the tradition of Catholic Tridentine theology, which had consis-
tently contested the sufficiency and clarity of Scripture as interpreted
with reference to itself. Others in the same tradition are e.g., Montaigne,
Charon (1594), Magni (1628), and Morin (1591—1659).** Simon was
applauded by J. S. Semler and Joh. Dav. Michaelis® and is praised right
up to the present day by Protestant historical-critical interpreters. In
any case historical criticism fought the Reformation Scripture principle.
As far as we can determine, the Socinians (Sozzini, Crellius,
Ruard, among others) were the first sizable Protestant group to place
Scripture and reason-on the same level and thereby elevate sana ratio
(sound reason) to the ultimate norm.*! From the standpoint of philoso-
phy the reign of rationalism begins with René Descartes (whose famous
Discours de la méthode appeared in 1637). The human “T’” “moves into
the center of the universe: It becomes “the foundation of all human
knowledge’ Since Descartes it is philosophically impossible to prove
one’s case on the basis of authorities—e.g., church tradition—other
than reason.“ A second consequence of the Cartesian revolution is the
“absolute priority” now accorded to man in the former triad
God/world/man.*
As an example of “novel Protestant theology,’ Le Brun cites the
 REVELATION AND CRITICISM @ 253

academy of Saumur, where Louis Cappel, the author of Critica Sacra,

maintains that Hebrew is inherently unclear. It requires, he argued, illu-
mination by other Semitic languages.‘* Whether such theological views
played as great a role as Le Brun thinks is an open question. It appears,
however, that Catholic skepticism and burgeoning rationalism gave pri-
mary impetus to the new development.
The point at which rationalism managed to breach the wall of
Protestant theology was in the area of the first article of the Apostles’
Creed, the theology of creation (“We believe in one God, the Father
Almighty, creator . . ’). Protestantism in the form of a “Cartesian mid-
dle party” came up with an intellectual construct that enjoyed lasting
popularity, according to which God was said to have created both reve-
lation and reason—and then the inference was drawn that God “must
have created them both without essential contradiction to each other?”
Since it was easier, even for the theologian, to determine the content of
his reason than the content of revelation, the latter had little chance to
exert decisive influence. It was reason which gradually acquired lever-
age over revelation. Now what if Picht is right in his claim that “reason,
as understood in Europe through Kant and beyond, is nothing other than
an idol’? In any case “reason” or its equivalent now became the
authority that along with Scripture called the theologian to account.
Various impulses, not only Descartes or Spinoza, played a part in
the formation of full-blown Enlightenment theology. The influence of
English Deism is widely recognized, embodied by the likes of the
Latitudinarian John Locke (1632-1704), John Toland (1670-1722),
Matthew Tindal (1657-1733), and Thomas Clubb (1679-1747).*° Still in
1809 Gottlieb Wilhelm Meyer appealed to Bolingbroke, Chubb, Collins,
Hume, Morgan, Tindal, and Woolston.*' A strong historical interest
makes itself felt, e.g., in Baumgarten, but this interest did not yet by that
fact lead to historical-critical theology.*? Also making itself felt was the
decisive will to shake off church dogma as a representation of slavish
conditions. It was thought that this would effect an essential liberation
of theology. To be “dogmatic” became a sharp reproach.” By fighting
254 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

dogmatic restrictions, one contributed simultaneously to human free-

dom, to the progress and improvement of mankind. Some theologians
described this as practically a fight “with superstition” or even as a “fight
between light and darkness,’ between “insight and ignorance,” between
“wisdom and error:’> What took place prior to Luther was “darkness.”*°
The consciousness of liberation led to the praise of Erasmus” and to
contact with the Renaissance, so that one could occasionally speak of
“impulses of the Greek spirit’’>* Luther, on the other hand, had to accept
considerable censure.*® The “happy revolution” that took place here
according to G. W. Meyer (V, p. 4) was described by Schoffler in slightly
baroque terms. Schdffler says it was a time in which the “upper levels
of our culture sailed out away from the sweet stream of faith, which
flowed securely between the stalwart banks of dogma, into the brackish
waters of rationalistic Protestant Scholasticism, and then into the waters
of Enlightenment rationalism, so that in a short time they were finally
driven onto the bitter sea of unbelief with its storms and shipwrecks.’®°
Sociologically speaking, it is significant that Enlightenment liter-
ature was widely produced by “theologians and sons of theologians.”®!
Participation by children of the manse was uncannily extensive. Out of
this grew a movement of “pastoral Enlightenment advocates” who
sought “to spread sound reason everywhere and to enlighten religious
sentiments.”® It was therefore more a “revolution” of the upper class,
behind which stood “no very considerable army of laypersons,” accord-
ing to Aner. We often encounter cases in which theologians of the
Enlightenment distance themselves from dogmatically strict figures,
e.g., J. A. Turretin (1671-1737), the son of a strict Calvinist,® or J. S.
Semler, who hailed from “strongly Pietistic circles?’ Historical criti-
cism as established in the eighteenth century is the undisputed offspring
of the Enlightenment.” It was itself conscious that it advocated some-
thing new and that it would bring about profound change in the history
of theology.® Its “dogmatic foundation” lay in the “Enlightenment’s
faith in reason,’ as Gadamer termed it.® This foundation no longer sup-
ported traditional dogma.” What was rejected was, e.g., the doctrine of
 REVELATION AND CRITICISM @® 255

original sin. Lessing saw mankind “‘in the first and lowest stage” as sim-
ply incapable of following “moral laws.”! Instead of sin, therefore, the
problem is weakness! Man was basically good. The doctrine of propi-
tiary atonement also fell into disfavor.” So did most supernatural aspects
of the Christian conception of faith. Thus, e.g., Johann Joachim
Spalding (1714-1804) demanded that “the doctrines of the trinity, of
reconciliation, and of justification be abolished from preaching” on the
ground that they are “theoretical religious doctrines:’” Early in the his-
tory of these developments the doctrine of inspiration was restricted to
inspiration of the person, as seen, e.g., in Chr. Matth. Pfaff.”
Exegesis at that time had already long been called “grammatical-
historical interpretation” of Scripture.* But soon this became “histori-
cal” or “biblical criticism.” Historical understanding received
enormous emphasis, even if, e.g., Baumgarten still left room for a “sen-
sus mysticus.”” Nevertheless, if one scrutinizes more closely, the indi-
vidual steps in the new method were not so revolutionary after all.
Pfaff—like Bengel before him!—made use of philology, history, classi-
cal studies, geography, chronology, and rabbinic witnesses for his inter-
pretation.” Baumgarten—like Rambach before him!—wished to
investigate the “historical circumstances” as precisely as possible and
took special note of the author of a Scripture passage, the addressees,
the time and place of writing, and why it was written.”
We must once more concur with G. Ebeling when he sees the
“truly decisive and revolutionary aspect” of the historical-critical
method in this: “all sources of the past”—even the Bible!—moved into
“the light of the new presumed certainties.”*° That is, it was not the dis-
covery of new, heretofore unknown means of investigation or method-
ological procedures that fomented the radical changes. It was rather the
principally skeptical handling of Scripture, which was now “‘to be inter-
preted like, say, a text from Plato.”*' Thus we once more run up against
the basic question: Exactly how does (historical) criticism relate to rev-
elation?
256 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

CRITICISM OF CRITICISM
It would be an inexcusable gap in even a sketch of the history of histor-
ical criticism if we made no mention of the criticism of criticism. We
will discover that the judgment of Gustav Schulze (1891), which is rep-
resentative of a whole other side of opinion, contains at least a grain of
truth: “The history of criticism is the judge of criticism.”
Not long ago (1977) J. van den Berg impressively stated the bur-
den of the decisions that need to be made here: “The question of the
legitimacy of historical criticism brings all sorts of questions along with
it: not only the question of what the Bible says, but also the question of
the world view, the view of God, the manner of revelation, the value or
lack of value of the metaphysical thought. All the great theological prob-
lems are wrapped up in it?’*
Following is a thematic, not chronological, list of points at which
criticism has been questioned.
1. The complaint about the destabilization of faith would not go
away. The fear of departure from the most ancient, received Christian
faith formed, e.g., an element in the bitter opposition faced by D. F.
Strauss in Wiirrtemberg and Ziirich.** In 1926 Girgensohn registered the
experience of many: “When young theologians enter church work with
their historical conception, they find mostly strong resistance to the way
they regard Scripture.’** Theology students themselves were in the front
lines of those affected. Characteristic is an invitation sent out to a pas-
tor’s prayer fellowship (Zentrale Arbeitskreis der Pfarrergebetsbru-
derschaft) on January 18, 1961, announcing the first seminar of the new
term: “In increasing measure we are unsettled that theology students go -
astray in their faith, no longer reading their Bibles personally and unable
to pray.” The invitation goes on to pose the question of “what is wrong
with the basic approach of present critical work” and asks “‘whether the
way future pastors are educated might not be in need of reform?
2. The concern with technical scientific problems often distanced
academic theology from the church and its practical problems—even if
 REVELATION AND CRITICISM @ 257

this distance fluctuated and, e.g., after World War I was especially
strongly felt;” and even if every form of theology (not just practical) was
threatened by such idiotically specialized one-sidedness. The complaint
remains that due to-the combination of destabilization of faith and spe-
cialization, a structural alienation arose between large segments of con-
gregations and historical-critical professors. Here we stumble against a
sort of prolongation of the Enlightenment tradition with its one-sided
domination by an educationally privileged citizenry.
3. Historical criticism saw in historical explanation of the Bible the
sole scientific way. This meant a monopoly by the historical-critical
method. The conviction was, in Childs’ words, “that only the historical
method has a validity for biblical studies.’** Protest arose against this
one-sided, historicizing focus, which wanted absolutely nothing to do
with other approaches.*°
4. A special problem involved the virtually unlimited plurality of
hypotheses. Already in 1927 R. Seeberg reported that historical-critical
exegesis was being reproached for leaving behind a “field of wreckage.””°
Criticism is too uncritical about this plurality, the protest ran. E.
Giittgemanns spoke, e.g., in 1970 of “an uncritical exuberance in
hypothesis formation’!
5. Historical criticism had once been developed to comport with
the philosophy of the Enlightenment. It had drawn its cogency not least
from this agreement with the general cultural and intellectual climate of
its day. Now, however, it must hear the charge that it simply accommo-
dates itself to modern man. E. Fascher even cited Nietzsche in this con-
nection in speaking of “temporally fashionable triviality’”** From the
opposite side arose the complaint that historical criticism finds itself in
a “psychological vicious circle of scientific methods and findings”; it
often betrays “‘a scholastic attachment to a particular line of thought:”?
6. Still more profound was the charge that faith can find no foot-
ing on the hypotheses of historical criticism. It is surprising to find
Martin Dibelius, a historical critic, voicing this sentiment in 1925:
“Faith, however, cannot be built on a foundation that must be replaced
258 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

every ten years in keeping with the state of research: He speaks of the
virtual demise of historical research of the Bible: “It has not fulfilled the
religious mission of passing on a unified and unshakable ground for
faith’ Dibelius therefore sought refuge in the “suprahistorical.”* F.
Beisser in 1973 voiced a similar charge: “An absolutely established crit-
ical consciousness means the replacement of truth with hypothesis. This
would be the end of faith.”
7. One of the essential presuppositions of historical criticism is
placed in question by the insistence that authority can also be based out-
side of reason. \t should be noted here that philosophy is witnessing a
stocktaking of the history of the Enlightenment. The assessment is in
part highly critical. Three names come to mind. Gadamer starts with the
Enlightenment’s quest to arrive at “the subjection of all authority to rea-
son.”* Gadamer wishes, on the other hand, to show that authority as
such can also “be a source of truth.’ The Enlightenment erred in “sim-
ply defaming all authority’? A second and more expansively critical
voice is that of Ricoeur. He battles Descartes and his starting point in
the reflective human subject. Instead, Ricoeur sees every consciousness
as being determined by an event. At this point the concept “revelation”
receives a new significance. To the extent that revelation precedes con-
sciousness and shapes it, it can no longer be derived from consciousness.
And to the extent that historical revelation is involved, we must reckon
with the “priority of historical testimony over self-consciousness.”!
Consequently Ricoeur fights the “idea of the autonomy” of conscious-
ness.""' His “concept of revelation,’ or “hermeneutic of revelation,’
reminds us of Schelling’s “philosophy of revelation:’' In addition to
Gadamer and Ricoeur we may mention G. Picht. He sees “the act of
questioning” as the “fundamental impulse of thought." “Perhaps the
question to be answered is what form of the knowledge [Erkenntnis] of
the truth accounts for all possible knowing [Wissen].’'* Such openness
to questioning, however, shatters the current prevailing construct of
human reflection as the basis of knowledge. For who is the “I”? What is
“thinking”? Picht clearly follows Schelling in no longer regarding sub-
 REVELATION AND CRITICISM @ 259

jectivity as the “foundation of our knowledge of the world.’'> But that

also calls in question a starting point in human reason. At the same time,
this openness to questioning wins back the possibility of receiving
answers from outside the ego. Picht addresses the question of how truth
and knowledge can come to us: it must be the “task of theology . . . to
call the sciences of this world in question and to test them by standards
that are not discoverable by scientific-immanent means”—namely, on
the basis of the Gospel.'®
8. A further criticism of historical criticism involved its elimina-
tion of the supernatural. “A new scientific spirit developed,’ says
Girgensohn in his treatise on the proof of Scripture, “the spirit of heed-
less historical criticism over against all supernatural constituents of
tradition?”'”
9. The same author, Girgensohn, lamented the “historical dis-
tance” that historical criticism placed “between the word of Scripture
and its contemporary reader,’
10. Yet not only this distance, but also the elevation of the theolo-
gian over the Bible draws fire from critics of the historical-critical
method. The way of dealing with the Bible chosen by historical criticism
“means ... that I place myself and my scientific judgment above the
material: I possess some kind of standards that I regard as scientific and
by which I measure the object under scrutiny. Or to put it differently: as
scientific subject I am judge of what truth of Scripture is valid and what
is not?”
11. From this follows that “the autonomous thinking subject’ is
“the ultimate deciding authority in resolving all scientific questions”—
“the critically thinking person becomes the measure of all things.”""°
12. Distance, elevation, autonomy of the subject—so runs a fur-
ther objection—have called the biblical tradition in doubt. As the deci-
sive entity of the Bible, Jesus has often been made the standard of what
being Christian means. But what do we know of Jesus if the tradition is
unreliable? O. Procksch comments, “If we call the [apostolic] procla-
260 © BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

mation in doubt, we also give up the only historical tradition that exists
about him?!"
13. With dogged consistency the criticism of historical criticism
culminates in the demand that the historical-critical method be given
up. The point was long since reached, critics say, “when its [i.e., histor-
ical criticism’s] work seemed to produce more negative than positive
results.”!'? Now there is need to reestablish connection with “precritical
interpretation.”!"
The above points of criticism sharpen the question of how revela-
tion and criticism relate to each other. Yet, just what do we mean by
“criticism”?

THE CRITICAL ELEMENT

In all the above the concept of “criticism” is accorded considerable
weight. Strangely, we typically find an entirely uncritical confusion in
the various conceptions of “criticism.” We find only a few reflections on
possible usage. In addition to this, there are the problems of definition
in various languages to which we have already alluded. Generally appeal
is made to the Greek krinein, which occurs in the New Testament, to jus-
tify “criticism” of the New and Old Testaments. Occasionally such
appeals tend to present the “harmlessness” of biblical criticism.
The Greek word krinein contains two chief meanings: #1) dis-
cerning comprehension, and #2) willful negative judgment. If the first
meaning is intended, Greek usage often adds a dia prefix: dia-krinein
(verb), dia-krisis (noun). This comprehension is related to the Hebrew
biynah (understanding), according to which one must stand “between”
in order to gain insight. The Hebrew word, however, carries a stronger
connotation of personal relationship.
If we turn to the concept of criticism that we encounter in revela-
tion, we see that it is foremost God—and not man—who is critic. It is
God who justly “judges;’ comprehends, assesses; God acquits man or
damns him (Ro 2:1ff.). God already exercises his “criticism” today,
 REVELATION AND CRITICISM @ 261

especially through his word: “It judges the thoughts and attitudes of the
heart” (Heb 4:12 NIV; the Greek text contains the word kritikos, “able
to judge’’). God is the One to whom we must give account (Jogos), must
answer to (Heb 4:13). It is man, then, who stands in question. Since the
Fall he has neither sufficient redemptive knowledge nor the sovereignty
to make a decisive judgment—insofar as concerns the relationship to
God that decides his life’s fate. Certainly, within man’s internal crea-
turely existence, comprehension and judgment are ongoing activities;
they are essential and appropriate. In that sense the critical faculty prac-
tically amounts to a good gift of the creator. Indeed, Schlatter rightly
calls it “our duty . . . to be critical, i.e., to be analyzing [zerbrechen,
“break into pieces”’] both our own thoughts and those of others.”!'* But
note carefully that he speaks of “our” thoughts—human “thoughts”! To
apply such a procedure to revelation would be perverse. Contrariwise,
it is first revelation that makes theological-intellectual distinctions pos-
sible, so that we are able to comprehend what is really before us, able to
assess and to judge. But this only takes place after we are judged, after
we are known (cf. 1Co 13:12).
Everything hinges on the priority of revelation. True, revelation as
such can be rejected or affirmed, for it involves a “nonviolent appeal”
(Ricoeur). It can, however, be neither confirmed nor “criticized?” For
man possesses neither the standpoint, nor the knowledge, nor the might,
to ground the justification of revelation on human confirmation or make
revelation dependent on human opinion. The praeiudicum (prior judg-
ment)'!5 of God went forth long before man set out with his “criticism.”
Only when he assumes the status of one “criticized” by God can he be
critically active in the space God’s “criticism” allots to him.
We arrive at the following preliminary major features of the rela-
tion between revelation and criticism:
1. As “discerning comprehension” (see above), “criticism” is pos-
sible and essential. This is true in two respects. First, it involves a crea-
turely perception that distinguishes the entire form of divine revelation
on the level of what occurs within created humanity from other forms
 262 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

and occurrences. Just as the human ear could understand the speech of
the prophets and was in a position to distinguish that speech from oth-
ers, we today hear or read the “book of books” in distinction to others.
This creaturely, “critical” perception involves, e.g., the locating and
determining of the text, commonly called “textual criticism.” To infer
“content criticism” (Sachkritik) from this “textual criticism” is diaboli-
cally wrongheaded. Just as one cannot well argue that Jesus, in calling
listeners to heed his words by the Sea of Galilee, was inviting them to a
content-critical (Sachkritische) exercise, so one cannot legitimate con-
tent criticism by appealing to the philological, literary, or historical
means by which we discerningly comprehend the text.
Second, “criticism” in the form of discerning comprehension is
likewise offered and made possible by revelation by virtue of its partic-
ular contents. Its sequence and its interrelatedness, its similarity and dis-
similarity should be pondered. This is already inherent in its
history-book character, which is how the Bible a/so encounters us. We
have already seen how closely such work is connected with salvation-
historical interpretation. This discerning comprehension is, however, as
an interpretive procedure bound as much to the spiritual renewal of the
interpreter as are other steps in that interpretive process. That means that
this area involves not only a creaturely but a new-creaturely level (cf.
2Coa hy
Those researchers who have understood their task to involve this
kind of spiritual discernment and comprehension have described it as
crisis sacra, “holy criticism:”''* To make an Enlightenment “content crit-
_ icism” out of this “holy criticism” is once again a historical miscue.
2. Revelation in its entirety presents itself to “willful negative judg-
ment” (see above) in its servant form, i.e., through the mystery of its
transition into human history. It can be accepted or rejected. It can be
obeyed, or obedience can be denied it. On this level of encounter, then,
“criticism” is permitted to man. But note well: “Criticism” in this sense
is tantamount to denial. It is impossible to change the Gospel into an
“other Gospel” (1Co 15:11; Gal 1:6ff.}—the “other Gospel” is no longer
 REVELATION AND CRITICISM @ 263

a revealed Gospel. And the Law can be observed or broken only as a

whole (Mt 5:19; Gal 5:3; Jas 2:10).
3. “Willful negative judgment” in the sense that man decides what
is revelation and what is not, is impossible for us on two counts. First,
it is impossible on-the created level because man lacks the prior knowl-
edge and certainty of what is and can be revelation. Both knowledge and
certainty first arise in encounter with God—which is to say, through the
revelation of God himself, not, however, detached from it. Second, it is
impossible because, on the spiritual level, the level of the new creation,
both revelation itself and the Holy Spirit testify to the genuineness and
completeness of revelation in the Christian community. “Content criti-
cism’”’ is at best an attempt using unsuitable means on an unsuited object;
at worst it is human autonomy creating revelation for itself. “Theological
content criticism” is, therefore, a contradiction in terms.
Again, the notion of criticism in general comes in for discussion
when its historical right is argued for by appeal to Jesus or to the
Reformation.
The relation of Jesus to the Old Testament has already come under
consideration (cf. chaps. 7 and 9 above). We restrict ourselves here, then,
to the most needful.
Both liberals and biblicists have maintained that Jesus exhibited
“freedom” in his use of the Old Testament, that he acknowledged errors
in the Old Testament, that he even used “incisive criticism’: “He does
not hesitate to criticize scripture?”'”
As an example the Sermon on the Mount is commonly adduced
due to its so-called antitheses.''* This example carries weight, however,
only if Matthew 5:17ff. is eliminated. For there Jesus lays down a strong
confession of trust in the Old Testament: “Do not think that I have come
to abolish the Law or the Prophets [= the Old Testament!] . . . not one
jot or tittle will disappear from the Law until everything takes place.”
Jesus does not, then, employ criticism on the Old Testament; he rather
unfolds its purpose statements in messianic-divine power.'”
A similar case can be made regarding the divorce passage,
264 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

Matthew 19:1ff. par., which is also often cited.'”° We search this passage
in vain, however, for any reproach of Moses. What is reproached is
Israel’s hard-heartedness. The Mosaic divorce permission (Dt 24:1) had
its place. Now, however, the time of pedagogical permission has passed.
From now on God’s original will in its full extent applies.
Matthew 7:1—23 is said to furnish another example of how Jesus
applied criticism to the Old Testament.'' What is denied there, however,
is the Jewish Halacha. Jesus insisted on the validity of the biblical com-
mandments! That a time will come when external food laws will no
longer apply because the new covenant displaces the old—that is an
entirely different matter. The Old Testament itself refers to this new
covenant with its obedience from the heart (cf. Jer 31:31ff.; Eze 36:27).
Jesus’ statements regarding oaths have also been used to prove his
“content criticism” (Sachkritik) of the Old Testament.'”* This is another
example of the salvation-historical and pedagogical aspects of revelation
being ignored. While the Old Testament regulations sought to insure that
the oath was carried out, Jesus seeks to insure that all our speech squares
with what we do. What is latent in the Old Testament is, then, unfolded
and brought to fruition—exactly like the commentary that Jesus himself
appended to his statements in Matthew 5:17. Not criticism but affirma-
tion and further application of the Old Testament characterize Jesus’
teaching on the Old Testament.
Jesus’ alleged breaking of the Sabbath can also not be used as evi-
dence that Jesus took a critical stance toward the Old Testament. This
is shown by the fact that Sabbath healings in Israel were a thoroughly
debatable subject. Jesus was not crucified for breaking the Sabbath. His
saying that the Son of Man (Da 7) is “Lord also of the Sabbath” (Mk
2:28) does not do away with the Sabbath but gives its content. The con-
tent, however, is given by the one who, as the heavenly Messiah, pro-
claims and interprets the Torah: he is the Lord of the Torah!
Occasionally one hears that Jesus “critically” judged the temple
tax and temple rituals.'* There is a sense in which this applies, if “crit-
ically” be taken to mean “prophetically:’ It cannot be concealed, how-
 REVELATION AND CRITICISM @ 265

ever, that the temple was given over to the enemy because of Israel’s sin,
and that according to God’s will the outer temple was only a temporary
measure (cf. Da 9:24ff.; Mt 21:12ff., 18ff., 33ff.; 24:1ff.; Ac 7:47ff.).
Anyway, Jesus paid the temple tax (Mt 17:24ff.).
It is unnecessary to take up more individual passages here. What
is important is that Jesus derived his being sent out and his going forth
from the Scripture (Mt 12:40; 21:33ff.; 22:23ff.; In 3:14ff.; 5:39), that
he clearly placed the Scripture above the Halacha (Mt 15:1ff. par.), that
he rooted his actions in the Scripture (Mt 12:1ff.), that he led his disci-
ples into study of the Scripture (Mt 24:15), and that he regarded the
Scripture as irrevocable (Mt 5:17ff.; Jn 10:35). How could he—just
looking at it from the human standpoint—as Messiah “criticize
Scripture”? Jesus did not criticize the Scripture; he “did” it (Jn 4:34;
6:38; Lk 4:21; Mt 5:17—20). Marcion and Mohammed applied criticism
to the Bible; Jesus did not.'4
While it is totally illegitimate to appeal to Jesus in defense of mod-
ern “content criticism” (Sachkritik), the appeal to Luther appears to hold
brighter prospects.
J. S. Semler wanted to associate his views with Luther.'* Neology
clearly felt that an all too critical break with all tradition would not be
advisable. So he attempted to enlist the Reformers as fathers of later his-
torical-critical developments. Later this attempt is pursued further.
Moldaenke mentions that in Gustav Frank’s doctoral dissertation (1859)
Luther is regarded as a direct praecursor rationalismi (forerunner of
rationalism).'?° In 1926 Frick wrote: “The first and sharpest Bible ‘critic’
on Protestant soil was—Luther:’'” Such claims heighten in the middle
of the twentieth century. Thus according to Dinkler the rise of
Christianity involved a “reformation” that was “quite essentially” con-
cerned with “the right of biblical criticism” (referring to Jesus and
Paul!).'28 On the one hand, Ebeling spoke carefully of “principles” of
historical-critical theology among the Reformers and recognized “‘cer-
tain inner material connections.”'”° On the other hand, he glimpsed prac-
tically the perfecting of the Reformation in the historical-critical
266 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

method. Protestantism’s decision “for the historical-critical method” is

said to have “upheld and confirmed the decision made in the 16th cen-
tury with the Reformation.”!*°
What can be said for this view? There are mainly two arguments.
The first consists in the Christological concentration that Luther carried
out in his Bible interpretation. We find the most pointed formulation of
this in WA 39, I, 47, where Luther’s forty-ninth thesis, de fide (on faith),
on the occasion of the disputation of September 9, 1535, says: “If how-
ever the opponents promote the Scripture against Christ, then we promote
Christ against the Scripture (urgemus Christum contra scripturam).”!
Both, however, are paradoxical moves. In point offact Scripture cannot
be urged against Christ; in point offact, then, there is also no need to urge
Christ against Scripture. Those who want to press the words of this dis-
putation easily forget Luther’s continuation of this series of theses: “All
prophets and fathers,’ in the Spirit of Christ, “spoke all that stands in
Scripture” (fifty-seventh thesis). “All apostles” were “sent as infallible
teachers” to us by God’s counsel and thus could not err (fifty-ninth and
sixtieth theses).'*? The appeal to “we promote Christ against the Scripture
(urgemus Christum contra scripturam)” is therefore unfortunate.
The second argument consists in the “content critical [sachkritis-
chen] viewpoints” that Luther is said to have used in his forewords to
the Bible (WADB 7, 344f.).'°> Yes: Luther spoke content-critically. But:
this content criticism had nothing to do with what he took to be the
canonical books but rather with the noncanonical. With Philippi one can
“doubt that he would have ventured such bold statements in the case of
writings recognized unanimously as canonical by the ancient church?”
Therefore, Luther research throws up a defense against the ratio-
nalists who “in peculiar blindness” wished to see “in Luther a forerun-
ner of their conception of Scripture.’ It would be farfetched “to want
to make [Luther] the father of modern historical-critical scientific study
of the Bible.”'°* I. Lonning raises the charge against advocates of his-
torical criticism that they worked with “formulas that are in part not
found in Luther’s time”; they interpret Luther “from the standpoint of
 REVELATION AND CRITICISM @ 267

a later set of problems.”” R. Bring is another who sees Luther as stand-

ing in opposition to historical criticism, which “is absolutely incapable
of reckoning with God.”"* O. Scheel and F. Beisser indicate that Luther
hung on every individual word of the Bible and reproached statements
that contradicted the Gospel.'° Scholder does discover a “critical prin-
ciple” in Luther, but he thinks it is “gleaned from Scripture itself,’
whereas the Enlightenment mode of posing questions was “dictated
from without.”!°
Luther may not, then, be regarded as the source of anything more
than weak “principles” or “starting points” for historical criticism.
Even his statements that can be construed that way result from abrupt
formulations that threaten to transform Scripture into principles (“Law,’
“Christ,” “Gospel’’), or from critical but distinctly personal assessments
of certain biblical writings.'*!
Overall, however, the Enlightenment had no right to appeal to
Luther. Its connection to Luther (and Calvin) amounts to a rupture, not
continuity. Most of all, historical criticism developed into opposition to
the conception of Scripture of Jesus, the apostles, and the Reformers. We
see that clearly once more when we ponder the “tendencies” that
Ebeling noted in the hermeneutical “turn to modern times”: “abandon-
ment of the doctrine of inspiration’; “distinction between Bible. . . and
God’s Word’; “autonomy of exegesis from dogmatic (confessional) reg-
ulating’”; “equating in principle of the Bible with other literature”;
“application of the various modes of historical criticism.”!*
Historical criticism possesses, therefore, no historical right that it
could derive from the origins of Christianity or the Reformation. It is
and remains a child of the autonomous spirit of modernity.

THE HISTORICAL ELEMENT

Till now we have scrutinized but one element of the historical-critical
method, the “critical” element. We now turn to the second component,
the “historical.”
268 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

How “historical” is historical criticism? To raise this question is

to stumble on one of the most astonishing discrepancies in the history
of theology.
Doubtless it was historical interest—in evidence since at least the
time of Baumgarten—that Enlightenment theologians sought to estab-
lish as the leading impulse of their interpretation. Well into the nine-
teenth century it was even thought possible to comprehend documents
of the past, e.g., the Bible, “objectively” in their existence and givenness.
Illustrative here is F. C. Baur’s treatise An Herrn Dr. Karl Hase (To Mr.
Dr. Karl Hase) in 1855. Baur states that this “is the actual task of criti-
cism: to produce the original facts of the case; to see a thing as it really
is, based on its existence; to let oneself be deterred by nothing in clear-
ing away all that hinders us from apprehending a thing in its pure
objectivity.’'*?
Of this very same Baur,'“* however, H. Liebing shows how criti-
cism and reconstruction were constantly intertwined in his work.'* Baur
very probably let himself be deterred from “pure objectivity,’ namely,
through the effort to see history 4 la Hegel as “an interconnected
entirety.’'*° Observations made about the New Testament were pressed
into the framework of the Hegelian system. But where philosophical
conviction determines the shape of the framework, it is historical con-
struction and no longer the historical as such that has the last word. We
discover, then, that the historical interest of so-called historical criticism
was a limited interest.
We encounter the same thing in the case of D. F. Strauss, proba-
bly the most famous student of Baur. Schleiermacher and Hegel deter-
mined his thinking, and later Feuerbach (from 1839 on?).'” For him
“speculative thought” is the decisive factor if one wishes to interpret
the Bible aright.'** For the essential content of the Bible consists in the
early Christian ideas that are contained in it. We must therefore push
through from the idea to the concept.'*? He subjected ideas to the
sharpest of criticism. But now we must make a peculiar observation.
In his Das Leben Jesu kritisch bearbeitet (The Life of Jesus Critically
 REVELATION AND CRITICISM @ 269

Examined; 1835/1836, 2 vols.), Strauss states clearly the conviction

that his historical criticism is of utterly no concern to the core of the
Christian faith: “The author [i.e., Strauss] knows the inner core of the
Christian faith to be completely independent of his critical investiga-
tions. Christ’s supernatural command, his miracles, his resurrection
and ascension, remain eternal truths, however much doubt may plague
their reality as historical facts [historische Fakta]. Only the certainty
of this can give calmness and value to our criticism.”' The conse-
quences of this conception are obvious. A distinction is introduced
between “truth” and “reality” (“Fakta”). The “historical” comes to be
tantamount to the factual. It is by no means any longer the decisive fac-
tor. The decisive factor is rather a “core” that is inaccessible to histor-
ical investigation. Criticism can only destroy the “outer shell,’ not the
core. Faith, however, involves the core that is impervious to critical
attack. That is, its certainty lies beyond the historical realm. Faith and
history are separated from each other. To sum up: the passionately pur-
sued historical research of the Bible no longer deals with the “core” of
the Christian faith. Historical criticism basically cultivates an ahistor-
ical faith.
One might think that this is an extreme view, limited to the likes
of a radical like Strauss. But we find the same view—at least in part—
already in the air much earlier. In circles close to Spinoza there appeared
in 1666 a work called Philosophia sacrae scripturae interpres.'>' It
shows a way to interpret Scripture by use of reason. This way consists
in—aliegorization!'* If one chooses this way, then in any case histori-
cal events are not the main thing but rather certain material statements
of Scripture which (in best allegorical style!) are no longer dependent
on history.
In his remarks “On the Proof of the Spirit and of Power” Lessing
pitted “facts of history” over against “truths of reason” and declared the
latter to be fundamentally independent of the former: “Contingent facts
of history can never become proof of necessary truths of reason.”!*°
Insofar as faith is “reasonable,” then, it requires in principle no histori-
270 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

cal basis. Already here, long before Strauss, the “core of faith” is
removed from history. What historical criticism undertakes no longer
affects this core.
Lessing’s approach is carried further by Semler: “The only proof
that entirely suffices for the circumspect reader is the inner conviction
through truths which are encountered in this Holy Scripture (but not in
all parts and individual books);’'** “Moral truths” are what Semler
seeks. He has an aversion to historical books, which do not serve “the
betterment of mankind.’!5> We may recall once more Aner’s verdict that
Neology “emptied the concept of revelation” of the “historical . . . in
order to replace it instead with a rationalistic content.’!%
These lines of thought can be traced right into present times. For
Wellhausen the subjective experience of faith was decisive, not the his-
torical fact: “Jesus was dead. Christ lived’’'” Jesus’ preaching involved
“the highest ethical conceptuality:’'** This cannot be destroyed through
historical criticism. We have basis for faith beyond the realm of history:
“Tn the core of my soul I lay hold of eternity:
M. Dibelius, influenced by Kant,'® likewise distinguishes “the his-
torical garb” from the core, from the “suprahistorical?’'*' Faith must cul-
minate in this suprahistorical realm and become independent of
historical research and indeed of history itself.'** Thus factual matters
become secondary. Easter, Dibelius remarks, calls for “presenting the
events, not as the disciples . . . experienced them at the time, but as those
events later appeared to those who became clearsighted through Easter
faith.’ Easter faith is accordingly more important than Easter fact.
This preference for the suprahistorical marks a renewed emergence of
historical criticism’s bias toward an ahistorical faith.'*
In some measure historical criticism confronts us with a “docetism
from the other side,” since in this criticism the historically legendary—
to put it bluntly, the historically untrue—is called on to ground faith and
commitment. Once again there is a working distinction between “truth”
and “reality,” a distinction we have already explored repeatedly (cf. chap.
9). W. Joest states, e.g., that “something can be legendary as a histori-
 REVELATION AND CRITICISM @ 271

cal description, yet true as believing understanding of the reality of

Jesus.”'® It may be that doubt concerning the hypothesis jungle of his-
torical-critical exegesis has tempted a systematician like Joest to come
up with such a solution. He, too, is concerned to incorporate the “mate-
rial” that withers ynder historical scrutiny into his edifice of faith: “a
legendary (by historical standards) feature of the reports can very well
express something by the content of its theological statements that
decidedly belongs to that which pertains to who Christ is.’'** However:
here again truth has been emancipated from reality, faith from history.
Historical criticism, pursued in this fashion, becomes prelude to an ahis-
torical faith.
An index of this tendency is the treatment of external criteria in
the overall scope of historical criticism. H. Frei observed that already
in the eighteenth century, German Enlightenment theology, in con-
tradistinction to theology in England, preferred “internal evidence” to
“external evidence.”'” In his treatise on form criticism L. J. McGinley
raised similar objections especially against Dibelius and Bultmann.
Both neglected the external witnesses of church history.’ Both are
ruled by a prejudice against “the historical value of the whole Gospel
story.” Indeed, McGinley even comes to the conclusion: “Historical
testimony . . . is totally neglected.’ Even if this judgment is too severe
in individual cases, the neglect of “external criteria” by Continental his-
torical criticism is undeniable. This obviously has inner connections
with what we have already shown regarding the way the “historical” is
handled.”
The discrepancy of which we spoke above can be delineated more
precisely. It lies between the emphasis on historical biblical exegesis, on
the one hand, and the dogmatic move to break free of what is historical,
on the other. In terms of their faith, most historical-critical proponents
are unhistorical. To put it more sharply: the very historical-theological
movement that wanted to claim to be the most “historical” has done the
most to devalue history.
272 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

THE SOURCES OF HISTORICAL CRITICISM

To inquire about the sources of historical criticism means more than
enjoying a historical reminiscence. Since it comprises the most influen-
tial “critical” movement within Christian theology, the question about
sources is tied to the hope of coming up with prototypical insights into
the relation of criticism and revelation.
Among historical criticism’s proponents there exists, first, an
astonishing agreement that this criticism is “a child of the
Enlightenment?’ This lineage determines it down to the present day."
This expresses the dominant role that reason plays. Until Descartes
philosophy had to answer to theology. After Descartes the relation
reversed: theology had to answer to philosophy—as the Enlightenment
consciousness saw things, anyway.” When we speak here of reason, we
are dealing with the reason of the “natural,” not the regenerate person.
On this Picht remarked: “here, then, the metaphysical discipline of the
‘psychologia rationalis, i.e., man, receives an absolute priority:’™ But
this is only one aspect of the new situation. Another becomes clear in
observing that this “reason” possesses no neutrality in terms of its
worldview. On the contrary, it is a religiously determined entity. To cite
Picht again: “‘Reason’ in European thought is, as a projection of the god
of Greek philosophy, saturated with myth right down to its innermost
components. It is a sign of deficient enlightenment if we do not know
this. From this point of view new light falls on the tension between faith
and reason, but also on the unfortunate love of theologians for this very
‘reason.’’’'® That means that the contact of theology with Enlightenment
philosophy and the development of a biblical science that answered to
reason was emphatically not a matter of method in the neutral sense.”
It rather involved religious contamination.
But such contamination was not merely a feature of criticism’s
beginnings. Rather, historical criticism of the nineteenth century devel-
oped in such a way that Grant spoke of theology being shaped by “philo-
sophical presuppositions.”
 REVELATION AND CRITICISM @ 273

The new situation, through which such application of criticism

arose, must clearly be characterized as a break with preceding Christian
history. Schwaiger spoke here of a “new establishing of theology?”
Westermann of the “opening up of a new dimension,” Ebeling of a
“revolution in the history of ideas.”'*! Such comments could be multi-
plied. This revolution marked a collapse of sacred hermeneutics
(hermeneutica sacra).'* Metaphysics and the supernatural became
dubious.'*
Yet in recent times this determinative “reorientation” through the
“spirit of modernity” has been passionately defended. G. Ebeling
explicitly criticizes Fichte, who had seen the Enlightenment as the age
of perfected inquiry.'** Ebeling rather explains that historical criticism
is “only the reverse side of assurance of salvation sola fide [by faith
alone],” because historical criticism “totally smashes all presumed his-
torical assurances that make the decision of faith less than necessary”
and thereby “lies on the same plane” as the battle against the redemp-
tive significance of good works.'*®
Claim is laid here not only to the heritage of the Reformation.
Claim is also laid to a missiological outworking for historical criticism.
This criticism makes it possible “to address the modern person:”'* It
guarantees the “connection to the thought of the age.” In the interest
of contemporaneity it behooves “‘to let burn whatever will burn.”!** Let
us presuppose that a missionary impulse was a factor in the development
of historical criticism. The result can nevertheless not be characterized
as the attainment of missionary goals. For an entire branch of historical
criticism, existential interpretation, almost totally broke off discussion
with the natural sciences. Even at that point where discussion must at
all events be pursued, namely, the doctrine of faith, it most commonly
did not take place. Symptomatic here is Trillhaas’ presentation of
Christian eschatology. He totally excludes a cosmological eschatology
and in the process remarks: “Duration of the world and future destiny
of the earth are questions for the natural sciences and as such should be
dismissed as beyond the competence of theology.’'*° The demarcation
274 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

from the natural sciences could not be sharper. Of model significance

here is also Wolfgang Schadewaldt’s interaction with the Tubingen crit-
ical school represented by E. Kaésemann, but also by R. Bultmann.
Schadewaldt criticized their “hypercriticism.’' After reading
Bultmann’s Geschichte der synoptischen Tradition (History of the
Synoptic Tradition) he formulated his reaction in the following words:
“] experienced a tremendous disappointment, indeed desperation. Upon
reading this book I felt somehow robbed.” At that point he drew the anal-
ogy to Homer research (cited at the beginning of this chapter) and saw
in comparing the two “certain perhaps not incidental similarities.”'*'
Schadewaldt was not the only classical philologist that was able to make
little sense of critical synoptic research.'”
As far as missionary impulse in the narrower sense is concerned,
the deficient missionary penetration of historical criticism can be traced
to the simple fact that with one exception'® not one significant German
missionary society was founded by liberal-critical theologians or cir-
cles. The idea of standing condemned in God’s judgment was felt by
many, as it was by Semler, as “horrid, monstrous doctrine:”'** The impe-
tus to labor for the salvation of other persons remained weak, then, even
if the pathos of Enlightenment care of souls and liberation was present.
What is the result of these observations? To deny the missionary
impulse totally would be unjust. It may not even be denied of a Harnack,
who in the dispute with Barth protested against changing “the theolog-
ical teaching chair into a pulpit for preaching.”'> It must, however, be
unambiguously stated that mission was not the decisive motivation for
the development of historical criticism.
To the contrary, individualism is what historical criticism has nur-
tured since its earliest days. Just consider how G. E. Lessing in his quint-
essential “Against Herr Pastor Goeze in Hamburg” defended heart and
soul as sources of knowledge. Lessing distinguishes here expressly
between religion and Bible, basing the former in that which the
Christian “feels:”' It is self-evident that this “feeling” demands that the
individual hark to his own personal sense of responsibility, not to some-
 REVELATION AND CRITICISM @ 275

thing outside that sense. The true Christian takes up the “doctrinal con-
cept” that has been “drawn from the Bible,’ and he holds “this doctrinal
concept to be true, not because he has drawn it from the Bible, but
because he perceives that it is more appropriate to God and more bene-
ficial to the human.race than the doctrinal concepts of all other reli-
gions—because he feels that this Christian doctrinal concept gives him
peace.”'” The “I;’ made the foundation of every decision by Descartes,
makes the decision regarding true and untrue. The “TI” makes this deci-
sion by itself. As Lessing put it, under the “banner” of that which the
“T”’ holds to be true, “only an individual person has room for religion in
the heart”! It is no accident that “psychology” gains a central place in
the Enlightenment.’ “Being determined by what the soul requires is
typical for the neological stage of the German Enlightenment,’ wrote
Aner.
This was not the case in the same manner along every stretch of
road that historical criticism opened up. Yet historical criticism did tilt
steeply toward individualism. Most of all it gave the religion of German
individualism renewed impetus in this direction. Paradigmatic here is
Wellhausen’s conviction that the Gospel preaches “the most noble indi-
vidualism,” “the liberty of the children of God?”*'! The same tendency
has an effect when D. F. Strauss characterizes the Protestant principle
as “letting nothing be prescribed as necessary to believe, but only
believing that which one experiences oneself in one’s own inner per-
son.” The contact with existentialism, which went forth from
Kierkegaard, likewise brought an intensification of individualistic ten-
dencies with it. One of the most far-reaching principles of Kierkegaard
was that relevant truth was only that which “‘s truth for me?” It is well
known that R. Bultmann and his students drew on this heavily. This is
again exemplified well by W. Trillhaas, who says in his introduction,”
we can “no longer let history answer for us, but we must answer our-
selves’”°5 Did Strauss not tender a similar argument? In view of his
“modern knowledge of truth” Trillhaas can no longer accept responsi-
bility for speaking of a “cosmological eschatology.’ As a result it is
276 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

rejected.2% What remains is individual eschatology: “Salvation is my sal-

vation, or it does not exist?” The content of that which remains is the
personal, eternal, continual existence after death: “Eternal life . . . is the
actual and ultimate goal and epitome of the Christian [!] hope.”°
We conclude that next to faith in reason, individualism is one of
the strongest motives of historical criticism. Both together, however, do
not suffice to explain the genesis and shape of historical criticism; they
do not yet afford a grasp of historical criticism’s ethos. This criticism
views itself as a defender of the truth and of freedom. Along with the
Enlightenment it wages the “war of light against the darkness.”
Its final source lies in the renaissance of the non-Christian Western
man.?"° Kant’s formulation retains pioneering importance for our under-
standing: in the Enlightenment there occurs “man’s exit from his self-
imposed immaturity:”?'' Man is dependent on neither revelation nor the
church. Not on revelation, because—according to a famous dictum of
Lessing—it can give man nothing “at which human reason left to itself
would not also arrive.”?!? Not on the church, because everything depends
on “the internal conviction of truths;”'? while nothing depends on the
authority of the church. Man is basically good, and he has the capacity
to order and shape his life according to his knowledge. He tests every-
thing that claims to further his welfare, or transmit knowledge, by his
own sense of responsibility. If he confirms the “internal truth” of what
he encounters, then there is no further need “‘of external verification’”?"4
Thus he has left behind immaturity and attained his maturity. This
renaissance of non-Christian Western man is not to be confused with
absence of faith. A religious longing quite definitely lies in it, a longing
that leads it to “religion,” if not necessarily to the “Bible?’'> Aner spoke
here of a “religion of humanity,”'®
It is the peculiar feature of historical criticism that it emerges from
a concept of personhood as religious, yet wanting to be autonomous—
all the while wishing to hold on to Christianity as the true religion. In
this combination lies its character. That is why it can regard itself simul-
taneously as the heir of both Luther and Erasmus, of both Reformation
 REVELATION AND CRITICISM @ 277

and humanism, of both the Bible rightly understood and naturalistic

Deism, of both classical antiquity and of the apostles, of both reason and
revelation.
This can be exemplified again by consulting the Biblical Theology
of that theotogian whose heyday marked the moment when the concept
of “historical-critical method” “became common coin in New
Testament research,” Georg Lorenz Bauer (1755-1806). We will add
a few citations here from the beginning of Bauer’s four-volume work:?'

How could we then work towards this separation of

truth from error more confidently; how could we
endeavor on our part to get closer to an answer to the
question that interests many thousands of well-dis-
posed people, the question, namely, whether
Christianity is a rational and divine religion which
deserves to be respected, believed, and followed by
the learned and unlearned; how better could we do
this than, from the records of the Christian religion,
the writings of the New Testament, quite impartially,
without predilection for them or bias against them,
and with the preliminary knowledge necessary to
their proper understanding, to seek to present what
the Christian theory of religion actually is; how
Jesus wishes himself to be regarded; and for what
reasons he demands that we believe in him? For
only after having honorably carried out such
research can one who accepts nothing without first
having tested it, but who at the same time also keeps
his ear open to the voice of truth, determine whether
to accept or reject Christianity.

All the essential markers that determine the character of historical

criticism find expression in Bauer’s words. It is man who does the test-
278 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

ing. It is religious man who “‘is ever ready to hear the voice of truth.” The
battle being waged here involves the “truth.” If the scientific “prior
knowledge” is present, then man is eminently well situated to wage that
battle. Claim is laid to an objectivity that flows from the fundamental
autonomy of man. A plea is made for Christianity. But the plea seeks to
show both its rationality and its divinity—this too is only thinkable from
the position of autonomy. Man makes his own decision for a doctrine
(“theory,’ “Christianity”’). And all this is done “honestly,” in the freedom
of the autonomous person who no longer lives in subjection to conven-
tional dogma.
Autonomy, faith in reason, individualism, Christianity—if these
are the primary sources of historical criticism, it is imperative to make
clear what possibilities there are for distinguishing each in the collec-
tive image they project. The answer has been arbitrary from critic to
critic—any of these four sources could be modified or even excluded.
Instead of autonomy, faith could be demanded as facilitating interpre-
tative presupposition. Or at least a dialogue could be called for between
the Bible and modern consciousness of truth, a dialogue that calls one’s
own prejudgments in question. Instead of faith in reason, sciences of
experience (psychology) or new paradigms could be introduced. Instead
of individualism social consciousness could be trusted, as e.g., in the
modern “ethnic” theologies. Even Christianity could be replaced, e.g.,
with the radical skepticism of a Franz Oberbeck (1837—1905).2"° A com-
prehensive critique in modern times is rare to say the least. Yet the four
fundamental components cited above appear to be normative for his-
torical criticism in terms of the “big picture.” It is here that discussion
must begin if we wish to determine the relation of revelation and
criticism.
Revelation knows “‘autonomous” man only as “lost” man. Jesus’
parable of the prodigal son (Lk 15:11-32) conveys this way of viewing
things in a concentrated form. The younger son gains a certain—not
full—measure of autonomy from the father, suggestive of a cutting loose
from God. This autonomy “suffers” under two limitations. #1) It can-
 REVELATION AND CRITICISM @ 279

not thwart the reign and love of the father. #2) It cannot assure that
forces other than the father will not exert their power over the son dur-
ing his sojourn in a strange land. His life becomes debt-ridden; he falls
into dependence. The once free son becomes a slave (cf. pepramenos,
“sold” in Ro7:14). From the very start his autonomy was a utopian illu-
sion, a path into slavery, indeed very nearly a course leading to total
destruction.
Revelation knows of human reason that also endures beyond the
Fall. But it does not call this reason the light of man. It does not go
_ beyond asserting the human capacity to hear. What is heard, however,
varies. In his lost condition and apart from God’s Word, man hears the
seductive whisper of his sin and of evil, thereby becoming—even if he
is an Israelite, one of God’s own!—a “‘child of evil and of darkness” (Jn
8:49; Eph 5:1ff.). Reason is, then, an organ of reception, not a source of
revelation. It depends on its sources of intake, on the content of the diet
on which it is nourished. Apart from the Word of God it lacks the capac-
ity to discern in the spiritual realm. No doubt it possesses a notion of
God through the work of creation (Ro 1:19ff.) and through the question
of the meaning of life. It suspects that a God could exist, that man may
not be pleasing to God, and that man may have to give an account of
himself to God at the end. But it lacks certainty. Certainty, the capacity
to discern, spiritual insight—all these it receives for the first time
through relationship with God. Here the seminal principle of the Bible
applies: “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge” (Pr 1:7;
9:10; WS 1:1ff.). The Enlightenment faith in reason, then, committed a
twofold error: it forgot that reason, too, was perverted by the Fall; and
it confused the primary receiving and duplicating function of reason
with content acquired independently.
As for the third component of historical criticism, revelation also
knows certain forms of individualism. Among these is, e.g., personal
responsibility before God that cannot be transferred to someone else:
“Fach shall die for his own sin” (Dt 24:16; 2Ki 14:6; Eze 18:1ff.). There
is also each individual’s confession of guilt: “I have sinned against you”
280 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

(Ps 51:4; cf. 2Sa 12:7). There is also personal faith (Jn 11:26) and other
individual aspects of life and belief. Revelation constantly reminds,
however, of that fellowship with God that is requisite for the individual
to unfold the full extent of his potential. In addition, individualism as
revelation views it involves fellowship with other believers and with
those whom each person may be given to serve (from Ge 2:18ff.
onward). God’s saving plan ultimately encompasses the entire creation
(cf. Rev 20-22). An “individual” in the literal sense, i.e., an isolated
human entity not participating in life as constituted and granted by God,
does not exist as far as revelation is concerned. The Trinity itself con-
tradicts the classical concept of the individual.
The concept of “Christianity” is foreign to revelation, although
theology uses it as an abbreviation and perhaps has no choice but to do
so. Yet the question should constantly be posed to the user: what does
the term mean? Undeniably, intrinsic to being a Christian belongs a cer-
tain body of doctrine that is (and must be) fleshed out as tradition and
a system. The New Testament speaks of such doctrine or paradosis
rather often (Ac 2:42; 1Co 11:2; 1Th 4:1f.; 2Th 2:15; 3:6; 1Ti 6:1, 3).
Yet, still more fundamental, soteriologically speaking, is faith and per-
sonal devotion to Christ (cf. Ac 9:2; 19:23; 22:4; 24:14, 24:22 on the
“way” of the Christian sect; also Ac 16:31; etc.). Personal categories are
more important than formal ones in defining what being Christian
means. A formal category can also more easily be corrupted than a per-
sonal relation. On the whole one suspects that the fundamental compo-
nent “Christianity” is diverse in meaning and often ambiguous.
If one reflects carefully on historical criticism’s normative
quadriga of autonomy,” faith in reason,”*! individualism, and
Christianity, then it becomes clear that it cannot be brought into har-
mony with revelation at decisive points. Biblical revelation rather char-
acterizes man in his actual state with terms like lostness, dependence on
God’s Word, orientation toward social relations, and personal devotion
to Christ. Revelation’s concept of spiritual rebirth is utterly opposed to
the concept widespread in Western Renaissance thought. Historical
 REVELATION AND CRITICISM @ 281

criticism, which rose “out of the spirit of the Enlightenment??? must

inevitably miss revelation.

THE STARTING POINT OF HISTORICAL CRITICISM

Skepticism and doubt are the starting points of classic “historical
criticism.”
To this very day the German theology student in his first seminar
learns that the point of departure for New Testament research generally
is “scientific doubt’ This doubt in many cases becomes constitutive
for his theological and spiritual existence.
To this day he can find commendation of methods that advocate
dissent. This commendation may take the form of warnings against har-
monization and emphasis on divergences rather than unity.”
Doubt has been sown and cultivated in the course of a lengthy his-
tory. Here we refer once more to Klaus Scholder. He sees “‘the principle
of universal doubt” as being introduced into modern thought by
Descartes.”* The Enlightenment extended this principle into “critical”
theology, so that Karl Lehmann can state: “In the Enlightenment era sys-
tematic doubt, according to which the reports of Scripture could possi-
bly obscure actual understanding, came to assume total dominance as
the fundamental presupposition of historical criticism of the Bible?”
Stephen Neill concurs; since the Enlightenment in Germany “nothing
was to be taken for granted,”
One of the most far-reaching consequences involves the burden of
proof in historical investigation. It shifted to the one who wished to
advocate the authority of biblical statements. Now it was no longer
doubt but confidence and trust that required justification. If the justifi-
cation is not forthcoming, then the statement in question remains sim-
ply unjustified and therefore nonbinding: “Lack of justification, using
Enlightenment reasoning, does not open up room for other means of cer-
tainty. It rather means that the judgment in question has no ground in
the thing itself and is ‘unjustified.’ That is a typical conclusion where the
282 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

spirit of rationalism holds sway:’* We encounter this demand for proof,

which is now laid upon theologians, in crass form with Lessing: “If no
historical truth can be demonstrated, then nothing can be demonstrated
through historical truths.””? The theological echo, so to speak, of
Lessing is found in Johann Philipp Gabler (1753-1826). He admits that
with grammatical interpretation, the explanation of that which the bib-
lical writers meant in their time, interpretation has only reached a first
stage: “But in our day little is gained if one knows only the grammati-
cal sense of a biblical passage. Now it is historical and philosophical
criticism’s turn, which subjects the biblical passage to its sharp
scrutiny.’ That is called “the enlightenment of the thing itself’’°° Here
reason decides based on the analogy of contemporary experience and
knowledge. Applying his principles to the Gospel narratives about
Jesus’ temptation, Gabler accordingly places the question: “Can the
devil have tempted Jesus in such a personal manner? Can Jesus have fol-
lowed the devil everywhere so good-naturedly . . . ?—anyway, the
Jewish devil is, in fact . . . a Persian and Chaldean product which the
Jews first encountered in the exile: how can he then be accepted here as
actually existing?’’*' The answer: he can’t. The modern knowledge of
the truth of reason speaks against it.
Let no one say that is an outmoded point of view. In E. Hirsch’s
judgment the Bible has no “authority that a priori excludes doubt and
contradiction,’ If one takes J. Barr’s line (1983), then it is essential for
both scientist and pastor “to know that there is a question about it, that
it is at least possible, perhaps likely, that such and such a sentence was
not spoken by that person’”?*’ All that remains here is skepticism; it
becomes the hallmark of theology. Right down to the present, K.
Lehmann describes this basic tendency: “The truth and historical orig-
inality of what the Bible claims cannot simply be presupposed but must
first of all be established?’
To be sure, we should not overlook the uneasiness afoot recently”*5
among critical theologians who distance themselves from a “radical his-
torical skepticism.’ Examples are M. Hengel and P. Stuhlmacher.
 REVELATION AND CRITICISM @ 283

Hengel observes that “radical criticism” too, with its skepticism, “has
no less often led to uncritical speculations during its two hundred year
history than apologetic-fundamentalist defensiveness.” Particularly in
view of Acts research Hengel presses, e.g., for more trust regarding the
historical wotk of Luke: “Luke takes a back seat to no other ancient his-
tory writer when it comes to trustworthiness,”?3*
If we can speak here of a tentative return of trust, the basic ques-
tion nevertheless remains: how does faith awakened by revelation relate
_ to the doubt of historical-critical criticism? Reinhold Seeberg long ago
indicated the direction in which the answer lies: in his view a “believ-
ing criticism” is simply no longer “criticism’’!?*” It is really “urgently
necessary” that historical criticism “earnestly question its presupposi-
tions, which are still very much an Enlightenment legacy:””°
Here it is essential to note the basic movement of revelation. In it
God seeks to win people’s trust. That is why the promise is older than
the Law (Ro 4:13ff.; Gal 3:15ff.). That is why the Beatitudes stand at
the head of Jesus’ teaching (Mt 5). That is why the history of human sur-
vival after the Genesis flood begins with a covenant rich in promise (Ge
9:1ff.). That is why the story of the patriarchs is introduced by the
approval of and promises to Abraham (Ge 12:1 ff.). Even historical rem-
iniscence serves to strengthen trust in the self-revealing God (cf. Dt
32:7; Pss 71:17ff.; 106: 1ff.). It should also be noted how Jesus structures
the first encounters with his disciples in such a way that trust can arise
(Jn 1:35ff.). Right into the wisdom tradition, the plea for trust plays a
central role: “My son, give me your heart / and let your eyes keep to my
ways” (Pr 23:26).
An encounter with revelation that makes skepticism and doubt a
guiding principle amounts to a brusque no to revelation’s concern to
elicit trust. Psychologically and existentially the most hostile position
that an interpreter can occupy is one of systematic doubt. In addition,
this doubt is not restricted to the small sphere of the theological study
but has become a scientific identification card. The so-called conserva-
tives (who occupy the middle ground between fundamentalist anti-intel-
284 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

lectualism and liberal hypercriticism) are also affected by this. What

else explains how a theologian highly respected in Bible-believing cir-
cles could write, “If any of the Gospels merits mistrust, it is most likely
Matthew . . it reports . . much that could absolutely never have come
from the mouth of Jesus:”*' In a lecture at a Stuttgart parliament build-
ing the usually very sober M. Hengel found in the same gospel of
Matthew a “tendency” “‘to heighten the sharpness of the imperative and
sanctions of punishment for pedagogical and catechetical purposes” (on
9 November 1982).”4? These examples from Matthew interpretation can
be quickly extended to the rest of the Gospels and to the entire New
Testament. Doubt and skepticism are at times influenced by cultural cur-
rents and stirred up anew. Thus a pastor in 1981 reveals, attempting to
rethink the relation to Israel: “I want to learn to understand Bible texts
that in the history of interpretation have been used anti-Semitically, and
I want to pass them on with only critical comment’? The questions we
raise here about how critical attitudes affect preaching and the teaching
of pastoral ministry have been raised regarding academic interpretation
in a similar manner by U. Luz in his Matthew commentary.”
We conclude that the impulse to mistrust that is inherent in his-
torical criticism is found in its unabashed divergence and dissociation
from revelation’s concern to elicit trust. This mistrust hampers the open-
ness necessary for interpretation—and hampers even more the prior
extension of trust which theology owes to revelation based on the his-
tory of its effects.

THE LOSS OF THE BIBLE’S AUTHORITY IN

HISTORICAL CRITICISM

Where doubt and skepticism reign, there can be no talk of biblical

authority, at least not in the classic sense.
Once more it is Klaus Scholder who has seen things rightly. He
characterizes the development of historical-critical theology as a
“process at whose end stands the toppling of the Bible as the authorita-
 REVELATION AND CRITICISM @ 285

tive source of all human knowledge and critical understanding’”“> And

once more we must return to the development’s point of departure in
order to grasp the process that unfolds here.
The luminaries of greatest importance are three in number:
Spinoza, Lessing, and Kant. Spinoza regarded the Bible as a human
book. As a result he refused to accept the view “that reason must sub-
ordinate itself to the revelation, laid down in Scripture, that transcends
reason.’*“* If one begins with human autonomy, then Spinoza’s conclu-
sion is actually entirely logical. For Lessing, truth, as “reason” perceived
it, stood above religion. One of his theses in the Axiomata runs,
“Religion is not true because the Gospels and the apostles teach it, but
they taught it because it is true.”””’ Indeed, he puts an even finer point on
it: “Even that which God teaches is not true because God wants to teach
it, but God teaches it because it is true’”** Accordingly it is truth that is
accorded actual authority, not the Bible as a book. It is a material truth
that Lessing speaks of, not a personal truth which is bound to the per-
son of God. Finally, in Kant we encounter a “fundamental integration of
revelation into reason.”
We must concede that according to the Enlightenment’s own con-
sciousness, loss of biblical authority was by no means harmful. For rea-
son was just as valid a source of truth as the Bible, and biblical revelation
could not convey anything fundamentally new. “Therefore,” says
Lessing,” “revelation gives nothing to the human race at which human
reason, left to itself, would not also arrive. Revelation just gave and gives
the important things earlier.”
That is, to be sure, a standpoint diametrically opposed to Luther
and Calvin.?5' That, however, is totally beside the point, says W. Schmidt
in 1968. “The Bible as understood in Protestant orthodoxy has not
worked out. To appeal to it as the Reformers did is today no longer pos-
sible’”*? Entirely in agreement with Ebeling, Schmidt likens his position
to the “outcomes of Luther’s ninety-five theses:”** This is an extreme
position. But the position is illustrative of a tendency that we can trace
from Lessing and Kant right down to the present hour. W. Hermann was
286 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

in any case not all too different from Lessing in declaring the Bible to be
“servant and not Lord” in a Christian congregation; Scripture’s function
is only the clarification of faith.2* We are reminded again of E. Hirsch,
who in the Bible saw “writings of human origin” which make “human
life lived out before God visible:’ Hirsch also disputed the Bible’s “divine
authority:’*55 On the whole, E. Dinkler in his treatise on “The Authority
of the Bible and Biblical Criticism” framed the problem of historical-crit-
ical, scientific investigation of the Bible this way: the question is
“whether it [i.e., historical-critical, scientific investigation of the Bible]
has not led and even must lead to the weakening of biblical authority, to
the disintegration of biblical authority, actually to its denial; i.e., whether
scientific investigation of the Bible does not finally lead to its own self-
nullification.”°°
We have consciously cited here only theologians who understand
themselves as critical theologians. We are saying nothing of the charges
of their opponents. There can accordingly be no doubt that historical
criticism as such denies authority to the entire “Bible’”-book. Anyone
who considers a return to the authority of the Bible within historical crit-
icism?” has already departed from its classic framework.
Characteristic of how the Bible is handled where its authority is
not recognized is the demand that it be treated as “‘a book like any other.”
The trail of this view can also be traced to Spinoza. He wanted “‘basi-
cally no other rules” to apply “for the interpretation of Scripture .. . than
for the interpretation of any other book-”** The prior assumption here—
and Spinoza, unlike many others, made his view quite clear—is that
Scripture is not revealed but is rather a purely human book.” Jean
Alphonse Turretin (1671-1737) procured room for this conception
among theologians. In De Sacrae Scripturae interpretandae methodo
tractatus bipartitus (1728) he championed the view “that the Holy
Scriptures are to be explained in no other manner than are other
books.”* Here, however, the theologian’s, intention in questioning
undergoes a fateful shift. Instead of asking about the will of the Divine
Author, now the question involves the intention of the human writers.
 REVELATION AND CRITICISM @ 287

Consequently Turretin states: “We must see which [ideas] could arise in
the souls who lived at that time.”?*' In short, we read the Bible “just like
the letters of Cicero, Pliny, and others’ K. A. G. Keil in his hermeneu-
tics textbook (1810) could already appeal to Semler, Herder, Turretin,
and others when he femarked that one must explain “the books of the
New Testament in terms of just those basic principles . . . according to
which any other book written by men must be explained?” Critical the-
ology sticks to this viewpoint, which gained ascendancy by about
_ 1800.7 With few divergences we find this same view in R. Bultmann
and the entire theological enterprise of which he is representative.°
Ebeling emphasizes (against Schlatter?) that the Bible “‘is to be inter-
preted like, e.g., a Plato text?” Salvation history and Sacred Scripture
are thereby done away with.” The Bible is precisely no longer “Holy
Scripture” in the former sense but only a “historical object.” And “the
historical-critical method” cannot be curtailed in its application to any
historical object. That means that biblical authority is sacrificed to his-
torical criticism. It is interesting that modern authors attempt to switch
to other methods of interpretation as soon as they conclude that “the
Bible is a quite different case from all other books of the world’ An
example here would be Girgensohn’s move to pneumatic exegesis. Such
dissenting authors confirm from the opposite point of view that histor-
ical criticism as such actually destroys biblical authority.
It is too little noted that we are not dealing here with merely a loss
of “formal” biblical authority. It is rather the case that far-reaching
“material” forfeiture is underway. In any event distinction between “for-
mal” and “materia!” biblical authority can only take place if objective
categories are employed. As soon as one takes as basis the overwhelm-
ingly personal categories that mark revelation in the encounter of God
and man, this distinction fades away. It should nevertheless be observed
that “materially” speaking even the central figure of Scripture, Jesus
Christ, ceases to be an absolutely superior authority for us as soon as
we hear in the Bible nothing more than ordinary people. This can be
seen in the history of theology in the work of, e.g., Johann Gottfried
288 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

Herder (1744-1803). Herder defined “the Gospel” “in the Gospels” as

“the teaching and character of Jesus and his work:””” This all pointed to
a continuation in mankind. Jesus established an example that now
guides contemporary man. The result: “The so-called religion based on
Jesus must necessarily, unnoticeably, and inexorably alter to a religion
like Jesus’ religion in the course of time. His God our God, his Father
our Father!” This is reminiscent of the modern formula “believe like
Jesus” rather than “believe on Jesus.” In any case it is clear that Jesus
can no longer claim authority since he is no more than a thoroughly
human example. Jesus, too, becomes prone to error.””
With the demise of biblical authority the possibility also vanishes
of deriving from Scripture “eternally valid norms” that are understand-
able to all.”
We have already spoken of the authority with which revelation,
according to its own statements, confronts us (chap. 9). Openness, will-
ingness to risk faith, and obedience are appropriate responses from the
human side. There is therefore no need to set forth yet again why the loss
of biblical authority militates against revelation. We should, however,
indicate that this loss was reflected even in the sphere of historical-crit-
ical research. Already in 1950 E. Dinkler wrote, “To possess a divine
revelation means to possess a revelation of the divine will, and to
believe this revelation means to obey this will?“ R. Bultmann was also
conscious of the lofty demand of revelation.”* Appealing to Augustine’s
“You have made us for yourself,’ he invalidated that demand.” More
recently the so-called positive criticism seeks to win back the biblical
authority that has been lost by, e.g., speaking of Scripture’s “lead”
respecting “truth’””” It is vehemently attacked by more radical critics for
its views.”* At the end of the day all these attempts just go to show that
the essence of historical criticism stands in an irreconcilable contradic-
tion to the authority of the Bible. Whoever wants to unite both the
authority of revelation and historical criticism falls into an intolerable
tension which in the end must give way to one side or the other.
 REVELATION AND CRITICISM @ 289

THE LOSS OF THE DOCTRINE OF INSPIRATION

IN HISTORICAL CRITICISM

The authority of Scripture would not have been dismantled to such a

great extent if the conviction of the inspiration of the biblical writings
had not increasingly diminished.
One of the striking features, however, of the process of historical
criticism is that the conception of inspiration proves more tenacious than
faith in the authority of Scripture. Johann August Ernesti (1707-81)
_ could simply assume that “Holy Scripture was written by inspired
men.” Semler and Michaelis likewise did not deny the authority of
Scripture as such.”®° Yet a twofold movement takes place here. First ver-
bal inspiration is given up in favor of inspiration of content or personal
inspiration. Then inspiration is characterized as no longer so crucial. It
is clear that, e.g., Johann David Michaelis (1717-91) ranks the question
of genuineness above inspiration: “The question whether the books of
the New Testament were prompted by God is not of such central impor-
tance to the Christian religion as the prior question of whether they are
genuine.”*' Johann Philipp Gabler wanted first “entirely to skip over”
the “doctrine of inspiration” and “not until later” consider it “when we
treat the dogmatic use of biblical conceptions.”*? That means that inspi-
ration is meaningless for exegesis. Then, however, it was only a matter
of time until it was basically shut out of interpretation. W. Gass (1867)
shows us the change that took place. According to his remarks “inspi-
ration and confessional standard” serve only “a practical function of
authority’; but “scientific theology in the more recent sense can and may
not be subordinate to them. Scientific theology’s sure possession is its
elevation above these norms.”** Historical criticism has freed itself from
the chains of the traditional conception of inspiration. Thirty years later
(1897) W. Wrede remarks in passing that “we cross out the doctrine of
inspiration,” and shortly thereafter (1914) H. Gunkel says that the doc-
trine of inspiration is “in principle long since collapsed or radically
reconstructed.”
290 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

Here is the late fruit of Deism. Among statements made in 1730

by M. Tindal, in a foundational publication called “The Bible of the
Deists;”* is his remark that as a starting point one must assume that the
contents of the apostolic writings were “not inspired by God.”**”’ At about
the same time Th. Morgan deduced from the conflict between Paul and
Peter the impossibility “that they all should have been inspired or stood
under the infallible leading of the Holy Spirit’”*
Regarding the modern situation E. Dinkler states that “there can
be no talk of inspiration;”*? while Amberg lends Dinkler aid with the
judgment, “The rejection of the old Protestant scholastic doctrine of
inspiration is nearly unanimous.” Nor did K. Barth make a return to
it!2!

Most recently we observe beginnings of a return to the biblical

understanding of inspiration. This is true, e.g., of P. Stuhlmacher. He
does not wish to put up with the situation as it exists in Protestantism
that threatens to wreck the doctrine of inspiration. Yet so far he has not
gone beyond an understanding of revelation as personal.?”
An almost self-evident outcome of the abandonment of the bibli-
cal-Reformation doctrine of inspiration was the secularization of the
interpretation of the Bible. Even for “positive” theologians it holds true
that scientific investigation of the Bible must proceed “according to the
general basic principles of historical work?”
A second, almost equally self-evident outcome was the forceful
rise of immanentism. Explanation of revelation restricted itself—more
on this below—to immanent modes of understanding, e.g., analogy.
Even if E. Troeltsch with his systemization of the “historical method”
be regarded as an extreme position, it is nonetheless true that since
Lessing’ the dominant view of history’s terrain is the one that starts
with the present possibilities of man and therefore builds on conclusions
based on analogy. H. E. Weber rightly speaks of the “spell of the idea of
immanence””* under which scientific-critical investigation of the Bible
operates. Acknowledgment of inspiration had broadened the view for
transcendence. Now a restriction to the temporal and humanly possible
 REVELATION AND CRITICISM @ 291

entered in, reminiscent of Lessing’s critique of miracles: “There are

those miracles that I see with my eyes and have opportunity to test
myself, and there are those miracles of which I have only historical
knowledge of, which others claim to have seen and tested” At times
immanentism goes so far as to characterize the entire content of
Christianity as “not transcendent but immanent?”
Where the inspiration of the Bible falls away, where immanentist
understanding reigns, the human authors must be reevaluated in ways
hitherto undreamt of. Already in S. J. Baumgarten the “humanity of the
Bible” along with historical interest moved to center stage.?** His student
J. S. Semler regards the human authors as “the actual originators” of
Scripture.” They are to receive all the attention. “Material explanation”
for G. L. Bauer (1755-1806) means to explain the “ideas” presented in
the Bible “based on the customs and form of interpretation of the
[human!] writer himself and his age, his nation, sect, religion, etc?”
This established a pattern that proved momentous for the future. Modern
refinement of that pattern may be observed in, e.g., E. Basil Redlich,
who finds the truth of the Bible precisely in the human viewpoints that
are presented there: The Bible is “‘true, in that it gives us a true account
of the beliefs and views held by the writers’”°' Close nearby stands the
statement that verbal inspiration “is a pure invention.”>
The demise of biblical inspiration opens the way to discover errors
in the Bible and to interpret the Bible in the light of these errors. We
sketched earlier (chaps. 7 and 9) the development that attended accep-
tance of errors in Scripture. This acceptance led from the Catholic crit-
ics of the sola scriptura principle*® into the circle of “conservative” or
“positive” Protestants.°* Today it is commonly accepted that Scripture
may err. According to E. Dinkler, an essential outcome of the historical-
critical method is that Scripture contains that which is false and “unhis-
torical” and is “by no means free of error’”*°> In a generally moderate
essay, E. Schweizer arrives at the same position: “An ‘infallible’
Scripture exists just as little as an ‘infallible’ church teaching office.”
Dogmaticians follow this same line for the most part.*” Assessments of
292 e@ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

the New Testament writings such as “they contain much unhistorical”

or “legendary features” or “It may be that words were put into Jesus’
mouth here”? are also not foreign to the Anglo-Saxon realm and are just
as prevalent in Old Testament research.*”
There is no need to furnish more citations showing that the demise
of the doctrine of inspiration effected the dissolution of one of the
strongest ties holding Scripture together as a unity (cf. above chap. 10).
Since Thomas Morgan it has been possible to build understanding of the
New Testament on the thesis that there are irreconcilable contradictions
in Scripture.* The opinion that Scripture lacks unity found the same
wide distribution as the view that it contained errors.*' A measure of
how wide is indicated when Dinkler declares it to be the logical conse-
quence of the historical-critical method.*'? Most of all with respect to the
relationship between Old and New Testaments, the widely held notion
of Scripture’s contradictoriness had disastrous effects. In spite of much
effort, e.g., by H. Gese, to show a unity between the two testaments, the
mainstream of historical criticism steadfastly maintains that such unity
between Old Testament and New Testament does not exist.?" As a result,
parts of the Bible are classified as “running contrary to the true will of
God.”3'* Even in the newest branch of “positive criticism;’ which is exco-
riated by “radicals,” it is still regarded as given that the Bible is at least
partially “contradictory-”*'s
An understanding of Scripture that annuls such fundamental
claims of revelation as its inspiration, unity, and coherence is no longer
suited for encounter with this revelation. Historical criticism finds itself,
therefore, in substantial contradiction to revelation.

HISTORICAL CRITICISM’S MISTRUST OF

THE SUPERNATURAL

If inspiration and authority fade and immanence assumes a dominant

role, then all that is supernatural is jeopardized.
The repression of the supernatural in historical criticism runs par-
 REVELATION AND CRITICISM @ 293

allel to some extent to the “destruction of metaphysics” in philosophy

since Kant.3'° W. Schulz has indicated, however, that metaphysics did not
simply go under, but, e.g., through Heidegger experienced a revival.”
The supernatural became suspicious in the eyes of theology at that
moment when it committed itself to a tension-free depiction of reason
and revelation.*'* Aner produced an impressive summary of those points
that have been attacked or denied since the rise of Neology: e.g., the
divinity of Christ,*"° the existence of the Devil,°° the death of Jesus
Christ as satisfaction for the penalty of sin,*?! supernatural working of
grace,*” the Trinity,*” and everlasting punishment in hell.** Gottsched
said, “I stick to what is most certain, which is what the pure light of rea-
son teaches me about God and my actions.” This describes the under-
girding stance of Neology, out of which historical criticism arose.**5
Still today F. Beisser sees science as a cause of the “destruction of
the metaphysical’”*6 In fact, traces of the traditional, historical-critical
antisupernaturalism are still visible. One notes, e.g., A. Oepke’s defini-
tion of “revelation,” in which he remarks that it is “not transmission of
supernatural knowledge.”*” On the other hand it must be expressed with
all clarity that at one decisive point historical criticism holds fast to
supernaturalism: in its talk of God. Why should this talk not thrive on
“transmission of supernatural knowledge’? Only occasionally have any
gone as far as F. C. Baur, who could no longer conceive God as a per-
sonal being but only as “thought itself’** Typical of ongoing wrestling
with talk of God is the solution of Bultmann’s renowned demytholo-
gization lecture. In plain terms Bultmann there admits that he must let
the “myth” of God stand. Ebeling therefore displayed well-founded cau-
tion when, regarding the characteristics of historical criticism, he spoke
not of an exclusion of the metaphysical but only of an “exclusion of all
metaphysical statements from the realm of the self-evident:”” It is
indeed also curious that historical criticism continually betrays a ten-
dency to anchor faith “beyond science;”*° somewhere or other in an eter-
nal, suprahistorical, or metahistorical sphere.
294 e BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

At the point of supernaturalism, then, one can only say that his-
torical criticism represents repression, mistrust, and threat.
This mistrust was at least so great that prophecy and miracle—as
already shown above—were widely eliminated.**' And on the other hand
the tendency toward antisupernaturalism was so strong that historical
criticism landed itself in the prison of a naturalistic causal nexus. Still
today one encounters such statements as: “The historian can presuppose
a suprahistorical incursion into the causal nexus as foundation of his
work just as little as the interpreter of the Bible can presuppose the Holy
Spirit”; otherwise we would succumb to a “revelation docetism.”**? The
counterquestion to this is simply: what if revelation itself—in prayer,
miracle, prophecy, and so forth—constantly and unconditionally pre-
supposes such suprahistorical incursions?
A consequence of the aversion to supernatural statements with far-
and deep-reaching consequences for the life of the church was the
enmity against the dogmas of the church.**> The substance of these doc-
trines was for the most part supernatural, and not just in such areas as
doctrine of God, creation, and eschatology. Baur posed the provocative
question, “If we [i.e., historical critics] too do only that which
Christendom did in ages past, why open critical questions?’** We leave
out of consideration here the voices of those who want to do away with
dogma totally.*** We mention only Gunkel’s aim “to clear dogmatic pre-
judgments out of the way and lead theology into the freedom of histor-
ical thinking,”*** All in all, E. Esking’s judgment, made in conjunction
with his Lohmeyer investigation (1951), is amply confirmed: “often an
outspoken loathing of all dogmatic Christian conceptions” has ruled lib-
eral exegesis.*” Recently, moderate criticism has attempted to exert a
corrective influence at this point.***

THE PREEMINENCE OF HUMAN SURGMENE IN

HISTORICAL CRITICISM

Historical criticism has not only pushed the human authors into the fore-
 REVELATION AND CRITICISM @ 295

ground, contrary to the structure of revelation; it has also attempted to

subordinate revelation to ordinary human judgment.
In this way it has built up a number of bastions.
1. One of the first of these bastions consists in the doctrine of
man’s goodness. The quality of being human is held to include that the
will is guided by reason. Man thereby acquires the capability of doing
good. In Gottsched’s words, “Our will always directs itself according to
reason.” Lessing called it “blasphemy” to deny that the human race
would attain the “highest stage of enlightenment and purity:”**° The mind
must be exercised until it “makes us capable of loving virtue for its own
sake.”**! The time will come—Lessing could call it the “time of a new
eternal Gospel”—in which man “will do what is good because it is the
good, not because arbitrary rewards are attached to doing it” In
Neology the “doctrine of the moral nature of man” becomes part of the-
ology.**? Jerome and Augustine are condemned “because they often did
injustice to Pelagius.”** The doctrines of original sin and Christ’s aton-
ing death vanish; the way of salvation becomes “synergistic?”*> A “cult
of virtue” arises;**° instruction and appeal dominate church life.
Baur still prized Pelagius.*” His student Strauss leveled the most
vehement criticism against Luther for thinking “that he and all men...
were subject to eternal damnation, out of which they could be redeemed
only through the blood of Christ and their faith in its power.” To Strauss
that was “so repugnant that there could never be any talk of sympathy
between him and me [i.e., between Luther and Strauss]?”%*
This doctrine of human goodness was not embraced where con-
sciousness of the Reformation was cultivated and honored, in dialecti-
cal theology, in biblicism, and similar quarters. Yet Neology’s optimism
drags on right up through the most recent times of recent church history
and crops up again, e.g., in modern liberation theology.” In any case it
should be noted that the origin of historical criticism is closely linked
with the doctrine of human goodness.
2. A consistent component of the entire course of historical criti-
296 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

cism is the view that man must decide regarding the truth content of
revelation.
K. Lehmann described the state of affairs this way: “Through the
formal ‘critical’ intention . . . the truth content of the biblical Scriptures
has factually always been measured by one’s own understanding of self
and world and thereby also limited by one’s own ability to believe.”
This “one’s own ability to believe” depends in turn on the philo-
sophical, religious, or psychological presuppositions of each
researcher.**' Two principles apply across the board: #1) “There is no
presuppositionless understanding’? (Bernard Lonergan calls presup-
positionless exegesis “the principle of the empty head”’);**? and #2) one’s
own understanding of man decides what revelation is—then in innu-
merable cases the prior character of man takes precedence over the new
insights of revelation. Unalterable grids of understanding arise. Whether
as for Bultmann the connection with Heidegger,** or as for Baur the
appropriation of Hegelian thought,** or as for Gunkel “‘the idealist tra-
dition of the 19th century” and “the spirit of romanticism,” or as for
Jiilicher the influence of Herder*”’—again and again the tendency arises
to subordinate revelation to established prejudice.
Yet in the same breath there is polemic against the “revival preach-
ers,’ “who rely on their own understanding of the Bible and establish
their own authority.”*** The polemic arises, however, not because such
preachers subject Scripture to a human prejudgment but because they
subject it to a false, uncritical prejudgment: “they . . . lack the knowl-
edge of criticism and the categories necessary to understand it; they live
precritically. . . °° One recalls that during the Enlightenment’s full
flower the terms pietistic, mystical, fanatical, and extremist were also all
lumped together.>
3. Whoever wishes to determine the truth content of revelation
needs certain criteria to do so. Let us return for a moment to Adolf
Jiilicher (1857-1934). Jiilicher applied the following criteria of authen-
ticity to the Jesus tradition: “Not capable of being invented”; “out of the
ordinary”; having the “magic of fresh life”; religious “depth and
 REVELATION AND CRITICISM @ 297

warmth.”*! It is not hard to detect the influence of Herder here. The

number of such examples is practically boundless.3* All these categories
confirm once more that historical criticism in its basic principles
remains captive to a humanly prescribed grid of understanding.
But shéuldn’t our pattern for understanding be determined by rev-
elation itself? Once more “positive criticism” is moving cautiously in
this direction, as when, e.g., it speaks of the “head start” that Holy
Scripture has in the realm of truth.2
4. Without question historical criticism requires a prior knowledge
“regarding what religion and revelation are, or what they should be;”
if they want to make a decision about the truth content of revelation.
This prior knowledge has been expressly defended by Bultmann
against Barth.**
This prior knowledge must at the same time also amount to addi-
tional knowledge, indeed at times presumption. “The modern histo-
rian,’ says Ebeling, meaning the historical critic as well, “is rightly
convinced that he knows certain things better’*** Otherwise, how
would it be possible that he “tests” “the substance of the facts
reported”? In contrast to laypersons, who are left to engage in “the
simple hearing of the Word,” the historical critic possesses “compe-
tence’ The modern critic ought not, in Barr’s opinion, question how
we understand God’s Word for today. He ought rather ask, “How is that
hearing to be modified, refined, and clarified through our knowledge
of the actual character of the biblical text as mediated through critical,
historical, and other sorts of knowledge?” Since he is, therefore, in
the position “to penetrate behind the texts,’ he is concerned with the
giant task of first producing the true content of revelation. The critic
proceeds here “according to the laws of historical probability,’ which
he knows.
At this point there is nothing more to say about the roots of this
conception in Descartes, Spinoza,” and Kant.™ It should, however, be
remarked that it has become dominant in dogmatics right down to the
doctrine of Scripture itself. According to Trillhaas, e.g., historical criti-
298 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

cism sets forth “facts of history over against illusions. Only the person
whose eyes are closed could hold to the orthodox doctrine of Holy
Scripture.” It is clear: man is the one who believes he is, based on his
abilities, competent to recognize truth and to distinguish revelation from
what is not revelation.
Before we attempt to assess this procedure, we must follow its
modus operandi just a little bit farther.

THE SEPARATION OF SCRIPTURE AND REVELATION

IN HISTORICAL CRITICISM
Fundamental to the historical-critical work is the separation of Scripture
from revelation, or of the Bible and Word of God. For historical criti-
cism the two are by no means identical.
J. S. Semler’s principles in this regard have come to be practically
the critical creed: “Holy Scripture and Word of God are very much to
be distinguished, because we know the difference; just because some-
one has not previously seen that difference, that is no prohibition against
us seeing it.’ The contents of this creed are: Scripture contains God’s
Word. That is its value and irreplaceable significance. Scripture, how-
ever, is not God’s Word. For it contains a good deal else that is not God’s
Word at all.*” This “good deal else” can be separated out through man’s
critical competence. As a result Semler goes so far as to say that he felt
a critically constructed condensation of the Bible would be possible and
desirable, a version that would consists only of God’s Word.** This
would suffice for our salvation. Once more Semler’s implicit claim is
that man is in the position to undertake such an operation “because we
know the difference.” Semler just as clearly states that such a procedure
is thinkable only since the rise of the Enlightenment. For “previously’—
i.e., prior to the Enlightenment—this “difference” was “not seen.”
Semler’s remark is correct. To take an illustrative example, for Luther
the Bible was “actually the Word of God itself?” And old Protestant
Scholasticism ruled out the “difference” spoken of by Semler, because
 REVELATION AND CRITICISM @ 299

in its view reason could not judge faith (and with it revelation).>®° Semler
and other theologians of his stripe, however, want a new theology, one
that no longer takes its cue from Protestant orthodoxy.
In this Semler and others enjoy the support of Lessing, who in the
conflict with Goeze sets forth the thesis: “The Bible obviously contains
more than what belongs to religion”*' He states this in direct opposi-
tion to the thesis “the Bible is religion’’*? Engaging in wordplay with
Goeze, who was a pastor in the Hanseatic trading center of Hamburg,
Lessing exclaims: “Surely there will be no dispute in Hamburg over the
difference between ‘gross’ and ‘net. In a city where so many wares have
their respective tares [weight deduction from gross weight of a substance
and its container, made in allowance for the weight of the container],
will no one permit me to allow for tare in such a precious ware as Holy
Scripture?’ By “tare” Lessing means, e.g., “David’s Cherethites and
Paltites,’ i.e., all the obscure tribal names that seem irrelevant to the
modern reader, or “the cloak that Paul forgot at Troas’”*** But what is to
be done with such things that seem so irrelevant to religion? Lessing
likens them to the bag in which a doctor carries medications and asks,
“Ts no one healthy except the person who swallows not only the med-
ication but also the bag along with it?””*
This is a graphic picture of the “husk and kernel,’ an image used
with great relish by theologians in subsequent years regardless of their
origin. A few examples will suffice here. Notoriously, D. F. Strauss saw
“the inner kernel of the Christian faith” as unaffected by criticism.**
Harnack spoke of the “kernel” and “husk” and sought the former in the
“Gospel in the Gospel?”*’ Dibelius wanted to separate the temporally
conditioned “garb” from the eternal and suprahistorical.*** Dobschiitz,
too, wanted to distill “timeless foundational ideas” out of the Bible.**
Further examples could be cited.
This image rests on an axiomatic presupposition. This presuppo-
sition “says that God divulges himself as God in these texts [= the Bible]
not directly.” Revelation, then, is something other than the Bible. This
axiom is determinative for historical criticism to the present hour and is
300 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

one of its definitive features. Gottlob Wilhelm Meyer (1802) could, e.g.,
characterize it as superstitious to want “to seek high divine wisdom in
every individual word [of the Bible].”' True, at first this referred to the
search for multiple meaning in Scripture. Nevertheless, a fundamental
attitude expresses itself here, an attitude that weighs even the words of
the Bible to see whether and how, if at all, they set forth that which par-
takes of the divine.
The divine and the human are, then, separated.*” J. Weiss desires
“to teach clearly and forcefully that the New Testament is not only
something eternal and divine; it also has a human, a historical charac-
ter’? The so-called positive theologians at the onset of the twentieth
century, who fought for the genuineness of biblical statements, still
admitted, “Word of God and Scripture, however, are indeed not con-
gruent:” In the same vein we may understand the conception that the
Bible is witness to revelation but not revelation itself. Ebeling makes this
clear in his characteristically lucid diction: “Revelation denotes not so
much... or at least not in the first place the Holy Scripture”; revelation
is rather “the event attested to in Holy Scripture’
Consequently it turns out—for K. Barth too, by the way***—that
the Bible is fallible; infallibility can be predicated only of the divine
Word that stands behind the Bible.
From that point it is but a small step to the further resulting view
that the “human,” the purely “historical” parts of the Bible no longer
apply to us. Thus F. Hesse in 1966 came to the conclusion “that there
are lengthy chapters and sequences of chapters, indeed even whole
books of the Old Testament, that are obviously bereft of any significance
for us under even the best-intentioned consideration?” He cites here
Leviticus, Esther, Song of Solomon, Chronicles—following much the
same line as Semler.
With this separation of Scripture and revelation historical criticism
cleared the way to make its own decisions about the truth content of the
Bible. It thereby consciously gave up the Reformation Scripture princi-
ple that was the foundation of the Protestant churches at that time, as R.
 REVELATION AND CRITICISM @ 301

Simon knew very well. Even a Girgensohn, who wanted to return to

Reformation principles, faulted the “exaggeration of the Scripture prin-
ciple” in the Reformation.** In 1924 Thurneysen wrote: “we also know
that modern thought has taken so much offence at no other point of the-
ology thar precisely this one”—i.e., the Scripture principle.
Thurneysen’s statement is no less true today.
Historical criticism’s manner of approach did not, however,
destroy only the Reformation foundation of sola scriptura. The further
question arises whether it did not thereby attack the very foundation of
being Christian itself. This question has been asked before. It would
have to be answered affirmatively if Esking were correct in saying: “It
may be impossible to deny that the so-called historical-critical method
carries with it a series of motives that are alien and unnatural, or even
dangerous, to the conception of Christianity?”
Prior to an ultimate answer, however, we need to reflect on a final
point.

HISTORICAL CRITICISM AS CONTENT CRITICISM

Historical criticism is, right to the present hour, intended to be criticism
of the content of the Bible.
“Content criticism of the biblical texts is a non-negotiable element
of all theological interpretation,” says P. Stuhlmacher, who embodies the
attempt to bring historical criticism into conformity with the Bible.“
Such concord is impossible. Stuhlmacher himself testifies to this
in deliberations from 1986: “According to a widespread (mis)concep-
tion, spiritual interpretation is incompatible with criticism of Holy
Scripture. That seems evident at first glance. How can we approach
God’s revelation as a gift, as proffered boon, and at the same time take
a critical stance toward it!’’*°? But now we see the effect of separating
Scripture and revelation. For Stuhlmacher remarks, “What stands in
Holy Scripture from Old and New Testament is not all Gospel: There
is then, already in the Bible, true and false proclamation. Therefore he
302 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

arrives at a conclusion that is “at first glance” surprising: We are “‘obli-

gated to criticism” also “within . . . the Scripture’
What the “first glance” reveals is correct. Hearing that transforms
the listener occurs only where the entire biblical Word is heard in actual
openness. But every content-critical approach must proceed from a pre-
judgment of which it cannot turn loose. The necessary openness is,
therefore, no longer present in principle. If that prejudgment were laid
aside, then criticism could only arise where revelation led us to it. That
occurs, however, only with respect to the prejudgment of the inter-
preter—and precisely not “within the Scripture.’ Guidance from
Scripture that denies Scripture by Scripture (which is what the term con-
tent criticism indeed implies) is found nowhere in Scripture.
Theological “content criticism” is by its very nature “distinction
between time-conditioned statements and what is abidingly valid’
within the Bible. The time-conditioned does not bind and obligate us.
The abidingly valid lays binding obligation on us. We have already
become familiar with how this distinction is made (see “The Separation
of Scripture and Revelation in Historical Criticism” above). How con-
tent criticism works can be characterized in another, simpler fashion:
biblical statements that are unambiguous from a grammatical-historical
viewpoint are entirely or partially rejected. Every content-critical read-
ing of the Bible therefore sacrifices part of what it contains.
Various time-conditioned or personal fluctuations determined
which statements were denied by historical criticism in the course of
history.*°° For Hermann Samuel Reimarus (1694-1768) “the resurrec-
tion of Christ” was “a fabrication of the disciples” and a miracle that
was impossible.*” For J. Wellhausen (1844-1918) Jewish eschatology
was “utopian” and its God “the God of wishes and illusions?’* For
Stuhlmacher “God in Christ” “transcends” Hebrews 6:4, which accord-
ingly is theologically untrue.*® The countless fluctuations to which con-
tent criticism has been subject in the last three hundred years expressly
refute the contention that Scripture furnishes the resources from itself
to facilitate such content criticism.
 REVELATION AND CRITICISM @ 303

Nevertheless, precisely in the last years and decades the need for
content criticism has received striking emphasis. In his criticism of
Barth, e.g., Bultmann insists that the “real content” (Sache) of the New
Testament that is accessible to the modern exegete “is more weighty
than even Paul” aad must be used critically even against Paul. Paul
becomes the moving force of Pauline criticism.” Ebeling, who also on
this topic produced the “leading essay;’*"' enjoins the modern researcher
who makes use of the historical-critical method to content criticism as
a matter of principle: “It [i-e., the historical-critical method] is not only
present where it perhaps oversteps its legitimate boundaries; it is also
essentially bound up with content criticism?”*
Emphasis on content criticism takes on the features of an estab-
lished dogma. Thus for E. Grasser (1980) it amounts to a “debasing” of
exegesis if it “forbids itself from engaging in content criticism?! And
Robert Funk, in tallying up the history of historical criticism, arrives at
the finding that it has become less and less critical of itself and “thereby
increasingly more dogmatic.”*'*

THE INCOMPATIBILITY OF HISTORICAL CRITICISM

AND REVELATION
Early in this chapter we stated that the decisive question is: how, as a
matter of principle, does criticism relate to revelation?
In view of the considerations laid out above the answer must be:
historical criticism is utterly incompatible with enscripturated revela-
tion—and if it is made compatible then it ceases to be “historical-
critical.”
If “unrestricted trust” is “the basic occurrence between man and
God,?”*' then what God says can and may not be bracketed out of this
“basic occurrence.” According to the Bible’s self-testimony God
speaks—and this is the same God!—reliably in the entire Scripture.
Historical criticism contradicts this self-testimony to the extent that it
disputes that God speaks in parts of the Scripture.*'®
304 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

According to the Bible’s self-testimony there is no further or other

revelation outside the Scripture. There is none, also not in the sense that
actual revelation “is” “there behind the letters?” The historically trans-
mitted, contingent Bible is the revelation. Thus—and not otherwise—
God intended to speak to us. Historical criticism contradicts this
self-testimony to the extent that it believes it is privy to an “actual” rev-
elation that entered Scripture only in broken form.
According to the Bible’s self-testimony God revealed himself
through this enscripturated revelation. Apart from it man does not know
what God, what revelation, what faith is. Historical criticism, however,
believes it knows what the true God, what genuine Word of God, and
what true faith are. With this foreknowledge and corresponding pre-
judgments it casts a pall over Scripture. It cultivates the legacy of a “reli-
gion of reason,’*'® while it lives in essential contradiction to the
“theology of revelation’ that has been entrusted to us.*!
According to the Bible’s self-testimony God’s revelation is
directed at our openness, our trust, our obedience. Historical criticism
exempts itself from this intention. Instead of being open, it defends the
“frontier fortresses’’*”° of the customary, of that which has already been
considered, and presses revelation through these grids of the customary,
the long known and accepted. Instead of trust in the biblical texts it leads
to distance from the biblical texts.*?'! Instead of obedience it exercises
content criticism where it thinks it needs to do so.
It was, among others, Ernst Fuchs who appealed to the thesis:
“every science orients itself according to its object:”*?? Biblical science
must accordingly construct itself out of what God says. It must be will-
ing to allow its certainties and positions to be given it from revelation
itself. The origin of historical criticism, however, lies in the self-assur-
ance of autonomous man; it lies outside of God’s self-disclosure and its
enscripturated revelation. This alien origin is what inspires its sinister
arrogance. One must not succumb here to the misunderstanding that this
arrogance is to be ascribed to the personalities of historical-critical
researchers. The historical-critical researcher too wants to be humble.
 REVELATION AND CRITICISM @ 305

The arrogance is rather of a structural nature. Over 150 years ago

Friedrich Liicke (1791-1854) warned that “historical criticism” in
Germany had “worked itself up to such a lofty position that it must nec-
essarily annihilate itself, if it does not, commensurate with its highest
ideal, again-humbly subordinate itself to the synthesis [that it labors to
understand].”** In view of the expanses of scientific ruins it has left
behind and its missionary unsuitability, it appears that historical criti-
cism justifies Liicke’s prophecy to some extent.
With Ebeling we must insist that here we touch on “the deepest
foundations and the most difficult connections of theological thought
and church existence.”*** There is no question of a “compromise”
between historical criticism and “believing the Bible,’ contrary to the
suggestion of, e.g., H. E. Weber (1914).*5
The only question surrounds how to seek a new way for more suit-
able interpretation to take place.
The objection will immediately arise that such a renewal of bibli-
cal hermeneutics and biblical exegetical methods is not possible. For #1)
we cannot turn back the clock to a day before historical criticism;*”° #2)
historical criticism is relatively speaking the best interpretive proce-
dure;‘” #3) the only scientific thinking is critical thinking.‘
Objection #1) is already questionable because, first of all, in indi-
vidual areas thoroughly new methods are being demanded and applied.
An example here would be so-called Pentateuchal criticism, in which
Childs, Rendtorff, and H. H. Schmid, among others, call for “new, ade-
quate methods.’*? What applies in individual areas must also hold true
for the whole discipline. Second, it would be blind, then, for us to over-
look that historical criticism since its onset was constantly accompanied
by other, indeed antithetical procedures. We speak here not only of lon-
ers like J. T. Beck or A. Schlatter but also of broad, church-steering cur-
rents like the so-called evangelicals or—to a still greater
degree—traditional Catholic theology. Third, the reforming of methods
and the rejection of historical criticism have been underway for a long
time and along a broad front. We refer here to, e.g., theologians of the
306 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

“Third World.’**° We refer also however to contemporary evangelicals.

The declaration of “bankrupt” against historical criticism even sounds
from within depth-psychology interpretation (E. Drewermann, W.
Wink).*?! Fourth, historical criticism itself came to life as a radical break
with the acknowledged orthodoxy. How can it now seek refuge in a
monopoly of its seniority? Fifth, however, and this is the decisive argu-
ment, it wrongs its “object.” Instead of adjusting the “object’”—biblical
revelation—to false method, we have to correct the method in keeping
with this “object.”
Regarding objection #2) above, we first of all concede that remark-
able results were attained even under the lordship of historical criticism.
We are also by no means about to give up the advantages of a historical
(not: historical-critical) study of Scripture. In view of historical criti-
cism’s past failures, however, it cannot be maintained that historical crit-
icism is relatively speaking the best interpretive procedure. And what is
best for the future remains to be seen.
Objection #3) contains a kernel of truth: Every science thrives on
“painstaking scrutiny,’ which can also be described as “critical investi-
gation.’ In addition, we have ascertained in this chapter that “criti-
cism” in the sense of discriminating apprehension (crisis
sacra!—sacred judgment!) most definitely belongs to the duties of the
Christian interpreter. In this realm critical thinking is, then, undisputedly
required. But anyone who wants to make of this a manifesto for histor-
ical criticism and theological science acts in an untrustworthy fashion.
It holds true at this point too that revelation (the “object’’) must deter-
mine the method and not vice versa. Should historical criticism turn out
to be in contradiction to revelation, then it can no longer be peddled as
“the” scientific method.
As soon as it is recognized that historical criticism stands in con-
tradiction to revelation, it can no longer obligate us to regard it as “‘intel-
lectual destiny.’ The need is for a newer, more suitable way to interpret
the Bible. ;
 CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Revelation and
Method

TWO IRRECONCILABLE ENTITIES?

At first glance the concepts “revelation” and “method” appear to bounce
off each other like a pair of billiard balls. For what human method can
comport with the sovereign acts by which God’s Spirit divulged some-
thing of the “depths of God” (1Co 2:10 RSV)? And conversely, should
the elemental power of encounter with God admit of reduction to ratio-
nal, even juridical formuias?
It should not amaze us if Christians have repeatedly rejected every use
of method. Such a rejection—albeit heretical in nature—cropped up already
with the “pneumatics” Paul addressed in 1 Corinthians, who resembled chil-
dren in their thinking (14:20), confused the Spirit of God with “disorder”
(14:33), and believed themselves to be mindless instruments of the divine
spirit, who strummed them like a harp to produce sound. Yet Paul saw things
quite differently. His counsel was, “The spirits of prophets are subject to the
control of prophets” (14:33 NIV; cf. 14:7). The pneumatics’ line of rejection
continues in the unio mystica (mystical union) of the Middle Ages, which
sought encounter with God in unification of the soul with God. This was
308 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

obviously in contrast to the path of Scholasticism followed by many others.

The same line appears with the spiritualists among the Anabaptists, who
despised the external Word, doctrine, and the sacraments and yearned to fol-
low only the inner light of the Spirit.
In citing these examples it immediately becomes clear that the
majority of Christians have not gone along with such total rejection of
doctrinally appropriate method. Why not? Without anticipating too
much of what follows, we can already give a few reasons: Jesus and the
apostles were teachers of the Scripture and of God’s will—and they per-
formed their exegesis in a manner that was thoroughly methodical and
reflected.' In Israel high status was accorded to the sages and scribes
who worked with methodological awareness. Their status was so high
that the charge of a “book religion” has occasionally been heard.” After
the death of the apostles the genuine tradition had to be cultivated,
guarded, and thoughtfully appropriated.* This finally led to the cate-
chetical schools, e.g., those of Alexandria. In addition there was the
necessity of answering for the Christian faith in the sense of 1 Peter 3:15
in the midst of a non-Christian environment (cf. the early Christian
apologists). Ultimately Christian mission itself was, since the time of
Paul, dependent on the nous (reason; cf. 1Co 14:19ff.). Although reason
cannot bring forth faith (in the sense of fides qua creditur, personal trust
in Christ), it can nevertheless set forth what must be believed (fides quae
creditur, the objective content of Christian doctrine; cf. Heb 11:6). It can
also deal with real or imagined objections to the Christian faith.
The majority of Christians, then, never embraced the notion that
the fact of a divine revelation must exclude methodologically aware
reflection on revelation.

KEY QUESTIONS OF PNEUMATIC EXEGESIS

STARTING POINTS OF PNEUMATIC EXEGESIS

On another level we find objections to methodologically rigorous inter-

pretation raised from the side of “pneumatic exegesis.”
 REVELATION AND METHOD e 309

The program of pneumatic exegesis arose at the end of the nine-

teenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries. Two basic considera-
tions stand behind it: #1) realization of the necessity to engage in
spiritual interpretation of a spiritual message, and #2) knowledge that
atheistic methods wére working incalculable woe in both academic the-
ology and the church.
Some well-known sentences from Friedrich v. Bodelschwingh
document the problem: “An inexorable flood of unbelieving and impi-
_ ous Criticism flows from the theological professors of our German uni-
versities, inundating our hapless young people in theological training
and shaking the foundation of our faith, which is the Holy Scripture... .
They enter the university secure in their faith and come back with faith
destroyed.”* Such laments were not, however, confined to the university.
They also arose in response, e.g., to religious instruction, “where those
theologians who were all too liberal for service in the church gladly
became religion teachers in the secondary schools;’> to quote a remark
made by Hermann Diem in 1950. Bodelschwingh’s opinions find their
critical counterpart in Karl Girgensohn. He noted an “embittered battle
in the church against the historical-critical understanding of Scripture”
and admitted: “It was . . .a correct instinct when they sensed, “Your basic
presupposition partakes of an entirely different spirit’””® Girgensohn
surely speaks from experience as he went on to write that “for many the
transition to a radical historical consideration of Scripture means at once
the hopeless collapse of any belief in the authority of Scripture.”
Historical interpretation kills “any reverence for Christianity’’” As a
result “Protestant theology . . . has fallen into a grave internal crisis that
has lasted a century and a half now.” If one sets alongside of this Adolf
Schlatter’s battle with Paul Jager (1905) against “Atheistic Methods in
Theology,” then it is clear that a program of spiritual biblical interpre-
tation is a virtual necessity given such a situation.
Theology has been reminded constantly that the Bible seeks to be
more than a document subject to historical-critical testing. But at the end
of the nineteenth century this awareness sharpened. The history-of-reli-
310 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

gions school was not the least of the contributing factors. This school
of thought posited a deep ditch, indeed an antithesis, between Jesus and
our present world. Jesus is quite alien to contemporary times. It even
became problematic whether one could speak of “New Testament the-
ology:’ Wrede demanded, e.g., that it be renamed “early Christian
Religionsgeschichte [history of religion]’ or “history of early Christian
religion and theology.”’? Additionally, in liberal exegesis the last bastion
of the Gospels’ reliability had fallen with recent investigations of the
(presumably earliest synoptic) gospel of Mark. For Wrede in his book
The Messianic Secret in Mark (1901) had shown that Mark, too, was
steered by doctrinal interests that led him to distort historical matters for
the sake of the theology he sought to spread. But did that mean the
Bible’s contents were reduced to historical accuracies, or inaccuracies,
as the case might be? M. Kahler called Jesus research of that area a
“dead-end street.”"' This ushered in a search for what transcends history;
there was new openness toward the pneumatic character of Scripture.
The line of this reorientation can be traced down to Barth, who rejected
liberal interpretation with the charge that it had lost the ability to pene-
trate “into the spirit of the Bible?’
These developments need to be pondered if we hope to understand
the concern and approach of pneumatic (or neo-orthodox) exegesis.
In this reorientation mentioned above the influence of Johann
Tobias Beck (1804-78) plays a leading role. He was, besides much else,
one of M. Kahler’s teachers. From 1838 on Beck strove for a pneumatic
interpretation of the Bible.'* Such interpretation presupposes, first, the
spiritual rebirth or regeneration of the interpreter. The interpreter may
allow for “distribution” of the “Holy Spirit?’"* The Holy Spirit drives him
to praxis: “Go forth and do what your conscience becomes aware of as
the will of God.”'’ Thus arises the unity of doctrine and life. And pre-
cisely through his praxis the interpreter finds “that Scripture is God’s
Word.”'* God’s Word proves itself “in your conscience” itself.” The old
basic principles of the testimonium Spiritus Sancti internum (inner wit-
ness of the Holy Spirit), of the unity of Scripture, and of the equivalence
 REVELATION AND METHOD e 311

of Scripture and Word of God are therefore taken up by Beck and con-
tinued. In doing so Beck regards Scripture as a doctrinal system that
must also be systematically unfolded. For Beck, then, pneumatic exe-
gesis is nothing arbitrary. It rather means the doctrinal unfolding of the
pneumatically generated Scripture through the regenerate (pneumatic)
interpreter. '®
It may be mentioned that the “pneumatic state” of the interpreter
was also an essential point for Johann Ludwig Samuel Lutz (1849) in
_ his Biblische Hermeneutik.'°

PNEUMATIC EXEGESIS’ UNFOLDING IN KARL GIRGENSOHN

Karl Girgensohn (1875-1925), like Kahler, followed J. T. Beck.”

Girgensohn also appealed to Hamann,”' Hofmann, E. Schrenk, and “the
grand old practical biblicists of Wiirttemberg’” Yet he himself did not
wish to be a biblicist.”
Girgensohn recognized that the usual historical-critical method of ©
Scripture interpretation did justice to neither the church nor the saving
faith of the individual Christian—and certainly not to the Bible. It did
injustice to the church because “deriving eternally valid norms from
Scripture” was becoming more and more difficult, yet “the Protestant
church” could “not exist as a Protestant-Christian church without such
norms.” It did injustice to the saving faith of the individual Christian
because historical criticism set its doubt over against “all supernatural
components” of the faith.”> It did injustice to the Bible because “the
autonomy of human reason,” “the principle of immanent explanation,’
and “the bias toward a mechanistic-causal explanation of reality,” all
characteristic of modern scientific thought, stand “in direct contradic-
tion” to the Bible.”
Girgensohn sought a way out of this crisis in a synthesis. He
wished to combine “‘the strength and depth of the biblicists with the crit-
ical sharpness of today’s science:’”” To make this synthesis possible, a
“practical-edifying understanding of Scripture” must first be developed
312 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

alongside the historical-critical understanding.** Here 1 Corinthians

2:4ff. assumes central importance.” In the practical-edifying interpre-
tation of Scripture the “submission of one’s own self to the will of God”
takes place*°—in direct contradiction to the autonomous reason of crit-
icism. Through prayer and listening to the text there must next follow
the “application of the Bible’s word to one’s own self?’ Girgensohn here
appeals to Bengel’s “Te totum applica ad textum, rem totam applica ad
te” (“Apply yourself wholly to the text; apply the text wholly to your-
self’’).*! By this means we open up “the suprahistorical revelatory con-
tent” of Scripture.** Girgensohn also describes the suprahistorical as the
‘“¢mperishable” and “eternal?” It is first at this level that man’s redemp-
tion can be spoken of. For “the historical . . . can not redeem man.™. . .
Only the grand course of eternity decides’’> Along with all this, how-
ever, the historical-critical approach remains in force. Without it pneu-
matic exegesis would “steadily somehow” become “a form of spiritual
fanaticism.”** Both modes of procedure, the practical-edifying and the
historical-critical, stand alongside one another equally justified, both
autonomous, both mirroring “two quite different stages of the process
of knowing-’” Girgensohn tested these two levels with his students for
five semesters and at the end of the experiment detected a “form of bilin-
gualism.’* What was viewed as synthesis turned out to be mutual sup-
plementation of two different, indeed contrasting ways of interpretation
that remained basically independent.
Anyone concerned with hermeneutics cannot ignore Girgensohn.
How did theology respond to him at the time?
Girgensohn’s ideas were almost unanimously rejected. This rejec-
tion was sometimes quite blunt. In the pages of the journal Theological
Bldtter R. Bultmann wished that the “chatter about pneumatic exegesis
might soon cease.” Like Bultmann, F. Torm likewise found the notion
of a “pneumatic exegesis” to be “detestable?” R. Seeberg, in contrast to
a pneumatic exegesis, set forth the “demand for a theological [!] exege-
sis.”*' The repeatedly expressed fear was that Girgensohn’s approach
would end in eisegesis and subjectivity. At the same time, with incred-
 REVELATION AND METHOD e 313

ible naiveté, many felt that their own historical-critical method could
“cause only what has objective validity to surface.”*? E. Fascher sounded
the alarm that “Girgensohn’s ideal view” was “a scientifically refined”
version of what Elias Schrenk represented;*? Fascher finally concluded
that all exegetes would reject Girgensohn.
In critiquing Girgensohn’s proposals we must first point to their
positive content. Girgensohn wanted “‘to hear’ in the Bible “not only a
historical human word about God, but also the voice of the living
God?’ Doubtless Girgensohn grasped the intention of the Bible better
_ at this point than his opponents did. For Girgensohn it follows that there
must be a special theological hermeneutic.** And the reason for this is
that Girgensohn, like Beck, regarded a theologia regenitorum (theology
of regeneration) as necessary: “The divine spirit of prayer is the best
leader to the divine spirit of Scripture . . . ultimately the Holy Spirit him-
self must lead and illumine us if we wish to arrive at an actual pneumatic
understanding of Scripture’’* In this way theology becomes a science
having a form of its own. It must think through its foundations anew.
Girgensohn is aware of this task, for he asks “under which presupposi-
tions the pneumatic understanding of Scripture can be scientifically con-
structed, once the limitations of the Enlightenment concept of science
are removed.” It is interesting that in all events Girgensohn holds to the
scientific character of theology and does not simply give it up.** In his
new concept of science, reason, i.e., reason “led by the Spirit of God,”
is accorded a central role.” This reason fits in well with meditation,
which is today being expressly called for once again. “Tf it is to yield
its deep truths,” states Girgensohn, “the scriptural word calls for medi-
tation in quiet and inner concentration under the influence of an attitude
of prayer.” It is necessary “that we let Scripture work on us, as we pray
and continually reflect, with open hearts and in living obedience.”*' This
is reminiscent of J. T. Beck’s stress on the importance of the interpreter’s
practice of the faith he sought to articulate. It also seems natural to call
attention here to Planck’s Kleines Homiletisches Testament, where these
words were written at about the same time that Girgensohn framed his
314 e BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

views: “How great are the demands of understanding! Standing; stand-

ing still; standing within; standing against:’>? Another positive aspect of
Girgensohn’s approach, finally, is that it grants appropriate importance
to the unity of Scripture. A “canon within the canon” appears impossi-
ble to him.*?
Other aspects of Girgensohn’s approach have rightly drawn criti-
cism’s fire. Even sympathetic consideration cannot avoid the realization
that Girgensohn did not arrive at the synthesis toward which he strove.**
Pneumatic-edifying and historical-critical interpretation are wed with
each other only through the person of the interpreter. Otherwise the two
modes of consideration remain unrelated, almost autonomous, alongside
each other. Indeed, the reciprocal principles contradict each other. While
the historical-critical mode of consideration is steered by autonomous
reason, the pneumatic approach evades this autonomous reason and
gives itself captive to the Spirit of God. The “felicitous complementing
of each approach’s strengths by the other’s” spoken of by Girgensohn*>
does not come about. A result of this is that historical criticism remains
untouched by it all. It is as little corrected in Girgensohn as in Karl
Barth.°* But what happens when the two interpretive approaches con-
tradict each other? Girgensohn repeatedly explains that in such cases the
pneumatic conception of Scripture can “thus” trim back “some of the
excesses” of historical criticism. It can set limits to criticism’s “naive
hypothesis-spinning” and “never push so far the customary fragmenta-
tion of the Bible into the smallest possible particles’’” Pneumatic inter-
pretation’s role, then, is one of offsetting excesses—not exactly
resounding success! The development of this exegesis showed that
pneumatic method was by no means the way to overcome historical crit-
icism’s excesses. The restorative power of this pneumatic exegesis,
then, remained quite negligible. At the spiritual level, however,
Girgensohn pressed forward to a notable position. That is, he arrived at
the view that historical criticism could “possibly amount to sinful guilt
and rebellion against the revelation of the divine.” Later H. Frey took
up this impulse, which we will consider more closely below. Criticism
 REVELATION AND METHOD @ 315

raised a further problem: does such a thing as a “pneumatic method”

even exist? Isn’t there really only the “pneumatic interpreter’’?°° The
Spirit’s dynamic working through the Word does in fact elude reduction
to some set method. Therefore “something tentative, ambiguous”
clings to Girgensohn’s study. And precisely because pneumatic appre-
hension of Scripture cannot be transformed satisfactorily into a method,
historical-critical method, which seems more illuminating because it is
more “methodical,” remains the victor in interpretation.
| Girgensohn’s “two-stage” hermeneutic, then, is ultimately unsuit-
able. It basically runs aground on its own inability to come to grips sat-
isfactorily with the two authorities of the Enlightenment, reason and
revelation.

CONTINUANCE OF PNEUMATIC EXEGESIS IN

PROCKSCH AND OEPKE

What we have said of Girgensohn must likewise be said of Otto

Procksch and Albrecht Oepke. They are also representatives of a pneu-
matic exegesis, though in a modified form and manner.
In his 1925 essay “Uber pneumatische Exegese” (“On Pneumatic
Exegesis”), Otto Procksch consciously related his work to that of Beck
and Girgensohn.°' The proper theme of the Bible, he argues, is the bat-
tle between God and (sinful) man.” “No man can project himself into
the mind of this God; one can only subject oneself to him?’® “Faith in
Christ” thus remains the only way to an adequate understanding of the
Bible.“ Yet Procksch denies the notion that there could be a “pneumatic
method,’ “What is distinctive,’ he states, “lies not in a method of
research but in the pneumatic points that confer initial life on the
whole.’® In his Old Testament theology (Theologie des Alten
Testaments, 1949) the principle of pneumatic exegesis continues to
shine through. Theology must demand “recognition of revelation,’
which on the other hand makes faith a necessity.® “Complete knowl-
edge” of the Bible is “impossible” in the presence of “exclusion of the
316 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

concept of revelation in the sense of divine self-disclosure and exercise

of faith.’ That basically includes the demand for a special biblical
hermeneutic—and at the same time presupposes a theologia regenito-
rum (theology of regeneration). Girgensohn’s two steps are still recog-
nizable, even if in weaker form, when Procksch writes, “As the literal
sense opens up the forms of history, a history that must face unfettered
research of its sources, so the pneumatic sense opens up its ultimate con-
tent.’®* Full “unfettered” freedom is, then, necessary for historical criti-
cism. It is however at the same time restricted to the “literal sense.’ The
“ultimate;’ the “complete; is the peculiar province of the pneumatic
interpreter. Yet it is an open question what this ultimate consists in. A
genuine synthesis between the pneumatic and the historical-critical is
not, then, reached here either.
Albrecht Oepke (1947) pleaded expressly for a “two-stage
approach” in interpretation.” Historical and suprahistorical interpreta-
tion of Scripture are both simultaneously required by scientific exege-
sis.” Historical interpretation is steered by the question, “What did the
Word say back then?’”” Here it is clear “that . . . criticism must be used;
that is a fundamental given:’” The basic principle applies: “We cannot
go back to the time before Semler’? Suprahistorical interpretation is
steered by the question, “What does the Word say now?’”” In this “meta-
historical exegesis” there is even allowance for multiple meaning in
Scripture.” Which interpretive possibility should assume prominence is
left open by Oepke. One is left with the impression that Oepke assumed
some kind of basic adding together of the results of the two approaches,
but he apparently did not think this through.

THE PNEUMATIC EXEGESIS OF HELLMUTH FREY

Finally, Hellmuth Frey is still another who made an impressive attempt

to furnish a new foundation for theological work understood as pneu-
matic exegesis.
In this Frey is aware of standing in the Girgensohn-Procksch line.”
 REVELATION AND METHOD @ 317

But at the same time he appeals to, among others, Luther, Bengel,
Schlatter,” and—understandably for an Old Testament scholar!—Franz
Delitzsch, who “realized most purely’’® the elusive intention that Frey
sought to achieve.
Frey’s central concern is that we get free of “the autonomy of the
human spirit’’”” This autonomy has squeezed all “results of theological
research into” a “preconstructed framework.’*° It decides what is his-
torically possible and impossible and thereby gives up, e.g., the possi-
bility of miracles.*' Frey has in mind, of course, autonomy in the sense
common to Enlightenment reason.
Such freeing from autonomy, however, does not only mean that we
must ponder new ways of reflection. It rather confronts us with a spiri-
tual turning point. We recall that Girgensohn had already spoken of the
“sinful guilt and rebellion” of historical criticism. Now. Frey speaks
increasingly of the necessary “submission to judgment . . . which in the
cross extends also over the knowledge we gain through research.”*? We
must repent of the sin of self-sovereign autonomy which we use, pre-
cisely in our roles as theologians of the Word of God, to empower our-
selves.** Such a call to repentance was seldom ever heard before in
theological circles—and it remained largely unheeded.
The positive, new possibility that we have is to engage in a “sur-
render .. . to the leading of the Spirit’’* He is the real interpreter of
Scripture. Frey’s understanding of Scripture pushes 1 Corinthians
2:6-16 onto center stage.*° Frey states, among much else, that every
“possibility of man using Scripture to empower himself” is “con-
demned” by 1 Corinthians 2:9ff.; “every method’s absolute claims are
relativized and referred back . . . to the servant role” it ought to perform.
“Autonomous man is even dethroned from his role as interpreter’’** With
this a theologia regenitorum becomes unavoidable.” As we already
expect from his connection with Bengel and Delitzsch, Frey opts for a
salvation-historical understanding of Scripture.** Frey likewise affirms
the unity of Scripture, pointing to the “unity of truth and reality in the
Old Testament concept of ‘emet [truth]? Furthermore, Frey conceives
318 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

of theology as a service rendered within the Christian community. The

interpreter must “have grown into the church of God and the fellowship
of his children” That also means “contact with the constellation of
proven interpreters of the past;’ among whom Frey numbers Schlatter,
Delitzsch, Bezzel, Bengel, Calvin, Luther, and others.”
Regarding the question of how this new way of interpretation
should look in specifics, Frey went considerably beyond Girgensohn. He
insists that in interpreting the Bible “the divine and the human” may not
be “divided” from one another.’' Girgensohn still distinguished sharply
between a divine and a human factor in Scripture. Frey, on the other
hand, draws a parallel between Scripture and Chalcedon’s affirmation
regarding Christ: “The ‘unmingled’ and ‘undivided’ [both applied to the
full union of both human and divine natures in Christ] applies to
Scripture as well’? Accordingly, Frey upholds—again in distinction to
Girgensohn—the “doctrine of the total and verbal inspiration of all of
Scripture.”*? Yet he separates himself “from the mechanical theories of
inspiration of fundamentalism and Protestant Scholasticism:”* Actually
Frey appears as an outspoken enemy of fundamentalism.* The Bible is
inerrant only in the mediation of “salvation.”*
Yet at this point—and this point possesses decisive weight—Frey
remains indebted to the heritage of Girgensohn: at individual points of
exegesis there is very little difference. True, one can sense how Frey has
wrestled with this matter and achieved more and more distance from
everyday historical criticism. Nevertheless: he does not overcome his-
torical criticism at the level of exegesis of individual passages. Still in
1963 he emphasized that there is no need “‘to ban the rational methods
of research in themselves.’” He has no desire to see “a new course of
research or knowledge” be added “to philological, literary critical, com-
parative religious, historical, and traditio-historical interrogation of the
texts.”** That means that Frey leaves research in the same place he found
it! This same position can be detected in his collection of lectures Krise
der Theologie (Crisis in Theology) in 1971,” even if he takes more pains
there regarding renewal in exegesis of individual passages.
 REVELATION AND METHOD e 319

At the end, therefore, Frey is left standing before*two levels of

interpretation. True, these are no more the historical-critical and the
pneumatic-edifying, as they were for Girgensohn. They are rather the
rudimentary, acritical, pneumatic level, on the one hand, and the ratio-
nal-critical in’ particular application. But the unifying of the schema is
just as little achieved as in Girgensohn’s case. The unfortunate two-
tiered character clings, therefore, to pneumatic exegesis across the
board.
In Frey’s Krise der Theologie he finally draws out a line that he had
already mentioned in the Otto Michel Festschrift of 1963. He wished,
namely, to dispense, decisively and radically, with every method. Every
method, whether pious or critical, has as ultimate effect the manipula-
tion of the Holy Spirit by man. So every method, in whatever form,
finally becomes sin for us. The exception is exegesis of individual pas-
sages, where methodological procedure is to be followed—and here we
see continuance of the double-thinking, two-staged approach, doggedly
defended no matter how bleak its prospects. The organic connection
between methodologically reflected individual exegetical steps on the
one hand and a reflected whole, on the other, is, however, strongly
denied.'”
Frey had given us, then, a trio of points to ponder: a call for theol-
ogy to repent, counsel to pay attention to the role of the interpreter, and
the unresolved problem of a pneumatic exegesis conducted on two lev-
els that never meet.
If we survey the pains taken by pneumatic exegesis, we arrive at a
surprising conclusion: methodological interpretation of Scripture itself
has come to be regarded as questionable. Frey said that every method
amounts to sinful manipulation. Does that mean there should be no
method? Or to put the question differently: Do we even need a method
for the interpretation of Scripture?
To shed light on this question our first move will be to call atten-
tion to the criticisms of method being debated today.
320 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

PRESENT CRITICISMS OF METHOD

The general admissibility of criticism of method must without question
be granted its right to exist, if one is convinced of possible progress in
science. The due place of such criticism is repeatedly conceded. Even
Wolfgang Richter, who could still write in 1971 that “[t]he right to apply
the historical-critical method is today . . . uncontested,’!*' emphasized
on the other hand that there “can .. . be no ultimate doctrine of meth-
ods; such doctrine corresponds rather to whatever state of research pre-
vails at a given time.’ “To that extent,’ criticism of method is for
Richter an “inherent component of scientific progress.” Hans Walter
Wolff speaks along the same lines. He rejects every interpretive method-
ology “that uses some principle to set itself up as Lord over the text and
its context instead of laboring in its service:”' In the most general form
the admissibility of criticism of method is set forth by Otto Merk in his
TRE article on scientific study of the New Testament. At the end of it
he writes that “New Testament science . . . remains critical regarding its
proposed solutions and open regarding the raising and framing of new
questions.”
The danger of such assurances lies in their platitudinal nature. As
soon as the right of historical criticism is questioned, there is an imme-
diate change of tone. A.H. Gunneweg (1976) is no exceptional case at
this point when he writes that the historical-critical method is the sole
“scientifically proven method.’' Nevertheless, we stand by our insis-
tence that criticism of method is no sacrilege but rather a nonnegotiable
essential in the science of interpretation.
Wolfgang Richter goes a step farther in his already mentioned
1971 treatise “Exegese als Literaturwissenschaft” (“Exegesis as Literary
Science”). He pleads for the necessity of a “pluralism of method?”
Pluralism of method is, therefore, receiving attention at the present time.
General “acceptance” has not yet arisen. And we should be careful with
this; for in handling the Bible we are faced with the matter of “truth’’
And where “truth” is merely negotiated, boundless pluralism is not
 REVELATION AND METHOD @ 321

exactly likely to be the best method to recommend. We are reminded

that pneumatic exegesis, discussed just above, wished to make use of
two entirely different approaches alongside each other and in that sense
implied a plurality of methods.
Criticism of method appears de facto in many forms. Basically it
is already underway where religious feeling is preferred to doctrine.
Sometimes Pietism displays this tendency. Philippi felt compelled to
complain that in Pietism he confronted “a relative disdain for the
integrity and purity of Protestant doctrine.’!* B. Ramm repeated this
‘lament in 1956 as he placed Pietism in the category of “Devotional
Schools” of interpretive thought.’ Against this, however, it must be
noted that Pietism as found in Spener, Francke, Bengel, and others
began as a scientifically serious movement. This should not make us
blind to the dangers of a later overemphasis on pious feeling which had
no compunction about applying even critical methods. Romanticism
and idealism could also be filled with contempt for theological meth-
ods. We may point here to a shift made by Goethe as an example. He
expressed himself in favor of comprehending the Bible emotionally and
didactically, not dogmatically and fancifully.'° This basic posture did not
hinder him from authoring a historical-critical poetic essay in 1797 in
which he calculated the wilderness-wandering at two rather than forty
years.''' We observe therefore also in Goethe a combination of deep feel-
ing, moral purpose, and critical theories—a parallel that is not so very
far removed from modern pietistic movements." Here, then, the method
of interpretation is relativized at the outset through a prevailing tone of
feeling.
Another form of criticism of method confronts us where the Bible
is conceived as something prefatory, as a phenomenon of an ineffable
truth, as an obscure transmission of a revelation, as a stained-glass win-
dow of light that eludes our grasp. When “the actual subject matter” lies
beyond the Bible in this way, the method of interpretation of the Word
is likewise only something preliminary, prefatory. It never arrives at the
real truth. The method can then be unabashedly critical. It takes on a
322 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

jaunty air. But this itself is a weighty form of criticism: method is

stripped of ultimate relevance. One recalls the charges that were hurled
at Karl Barth in this regard. His exegesis was said to be “fanatical”;
he was said to make the text into a “mouthpiece for his own prophetic
utterance?”!'* We find the conviction in M. Dibelius (1925) that the “rev-
elation of the unconditioned was given” to us “in historically condi-
tioned form.”'’ The parallel to Barth is obvious. All methods grasp, then,
only as far as the historically conditioned, while the revelation of the
unconditioned remains ultimately inaccessible to them. Faith becomes
a courageous act that transcends the historical, the outward shell. Or as
M. Dibelius himself put it: “In the final step of faith time extends itself
upward into eternity:”''* It is then not so bad if “the suitability of the
method” cannot be “ascertained?”!”
The conviction that the concrete word of the Bible is only a penul-
timate word, and that the ultimate word must be discovered out some-
where beyond it, assumes a number of forms. E. Lohmeyer is another
who wrestled with “the problem of revelation in history:’ In 1951 Erik
Esking examined Lohmeyer’s theological exegesis and found there
“intellectual mysticism and scientific passion” alongside each other!'*—
a syndrome we have already encountered above. At this point a glance
beyond the confines of theology is warranted. August Boeckh, author
of the foundational Encyclopddie und Methodologie der philologischen
Wissenschaften (Encyclopedia and Methodology of the Philological
Sciences) that appeared in 1877, restricted the possibility of a scientific
hermeneutic to the realm of the human. In view of the Bible he
expressed this judgment: “[I]f it is a divine book, then it is raised beyond
all hermeneutics and cannot be grasped through the art of understand-
ing, but only through divine spiritual influence’”" Yet man is capable of
even this “divine spiritual influence,’ for the human spirit “is indeed of
divine origin.”'”° It would not be far wrong to detect the basic outlook of
German idealism in such utterances. No method reaches the divine,
which is the real subject matter of the Bible. From that point on meth-
ods were given free, even critical leeway. In recent times talk of the eter-
 REVELATION AND METHOD @ 323

nal or the divine has receded. What has not receded, however, is that
inner distance of the exegete from the raw material of his work. The
exegete is conscious of making contact only with the prefatory through
his historical methods. There also continues to be present the yearning
to attain a deeper understanding of the Bible beyond that offered by the
usual historical work. H. W. Wolff formulated that “border-conscious-
ness” of the critical exegete in this way: “No methodology can replace
the Spirit of the living God as the actual interpreter of the text.”!?! And
in 1987 P. Stuhlmacher warned that “the historical-critical method
‘must not simply be elevated without scrutiny to a theological method?”
A “theological method,” in his view, also presupposes a theologia regen-
itorum (theology of regeneration): “Only the person who participates in
the faith and life of the Christian community gains access to the inner
clarity of the biblical testimony to the Gospel??? Although it remains
unclear what this “inner clarity” amounts to, and although Stuhlmacher
still calls for theological method to work “critical of the content of its
subject matter” (“sachkritisch’’),' it is nevertheless obvious that “his-
torical-critical method” and “theological method” stand alongside each
other as respectively contrasting entities. But that is to declare the his-
torical-critical method as insufficient. By itself it cannot achieve theo-
logical understanding. In this way too the method as usually practiced
meets with criticism.
A further form of criticism of method is found where supporting
pillars of historical criticism are subjected to reconstruction. Currently
this is taking place with form criticism. Uneasiness about form criticism
has been around for a long time, especially in terms of its development
in German theology.'> Already in 1927 no less clear-sighted a researcher
than E. v. Dobschiitz termed the “application of Greek terms” to
Palestinian traditions “wrong.”'?° He was not pleased that actual history
was receiving too little regard. The “decisive question” would be:
“History of Jesus or history of the Christian community?”!” Thirty
years later (1957) H. Riesenfeld subjected form criticism as it existed at
the time to fundamental criticism.'* The Jesus tradition was preserved
324 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

and cultivated from Jesus’ time onward in a manner with analogies in

Judaism, which was the soil in which Jesus and his followers were
rooted. Jesus, like a Jewish rabbi, had his disciples commit his words to
memory.'” In their epistles Paul and James presuppose familiarity with
the Jesus traditions in the congregations to whom they write.'*°
Riesenfeld rejected as “romantic” the established form-critical scenario
of the Gospels arising out of “free formations” or “inventions” by pneu-
matic Christians."*' Three years later (1960) the German Heinz
Schiirmann wrote on “The Pre-Easter Beginnings of the Sayings
Tradition.” Along with sharp attacks on form criticism—which he
reproached for “blindness” and “shortsightedness”'**—and appealing to
Soiron, Riesenfeld, and others,'** Schiirmann conceived of “Jesus as
teacher,’'** who “formed his sayings consciously and passed them along
to the disciples.” The New Testament has as its basis, then, “a culti-
vated continuum of tradition’’'* Later (1973) in “A Method-Critical
Meditation”'” Schiirmann directed remarks against Bultmann and his
followers; Schiirmann went beyond the problems of form criticism to
state: The “mechanisms” of critical method are “too narrowly
focused.’ Then in 1970 Erhardt Giittgemanns published “Open
Questions about Form Criticism of the Gospels.” He pointed to a long
list of researchers (among others E. Fascher, H. Riesenfeld, V. Taylor, B.
S. Easton, E. B. Redlich, G. Schille).'°° “Uncritical dabbling in hypothe-
ses,’ “scholastic attachment to a certain direction” of analysis, and the
assumption of a literarily productive “collective” community had hin-
dered more fruitful results.'*? In 1979 Hubert Frankemidlle, like
Schiirmann above, authored “A Method-Critical Meditation?’'! in
which he opposed “a traditional, anti-individually oriented form criti-
cism, with the exaggerated role it ascribes to the community.’ The
upshot: “The acceptance of a creative production by anonymous, col-
lective communities . . . is to be rejected. Individual bearers and sculp-
tors of tradition . . . are the creative producers of the texts’”'*? Here
traditional form criticism is overcome by criticism of method. The tra-
 REVELATION AND METHOD @ 325

dition of a method itself is subject to question and if necessary thor-

oughgoing replacement.
We turn now from criticism of particular areas of the historical-
critical method to fundamental criticism of the historical-critical
method. The diversity of this criticism is surprising. Wolfgang Richter
(1971), e.g., is of the opinion “that the term ‘historical-critical science’
no longer be utilized.’ Why not? Because the enemy, i.e., “systematic”
or dogmatic theology, is dead!'** With the end of the battle the end of
the victor has arrived, too. N. Yri (1978) speaks quite differently. He
wishes to continue orthodox Lutheranism’s understanding of Scripture,
most of all on the basis of inspiration and the authority of Scripture.
History, he thinks, has practically disappeared in historical criticism. For
in its reading of the Bible it sees there only “interpreted history.’ So he
demands a suitable “historical-theological method” instead of the his-
torical-critical method.'* B. S. Childs sets his “canonical interpretation”
of the Bible alongside more traditional criticism. By “canonical inter-
pretation” he means that the biblical text is to be interpreted #1) based
on its “final shape” and #2) based on its position in the canon of the
Jewish, or Christian, community of faith (“canonical shape’”).'** Since
Childs practices both interpretive methods alongside each other—the
historical-critical and the canonical—he falls prey to the same two-stage
dilemma as Girgensohn once did.
Walter Wink counts as one of the most pronounced representatives
of a “psychological interpretation” of Scripture. He speaks unabashedly
of a “bankruptcy” of the historical-critical method (1975).'*° The reason
it must be declared bankrupt lies in its abstractness and alien relation to
life. It can no longer aid man in his existence. It must, therefore, be
“brought over” into helping and healing action. Under closer scrutiny
one discovers a two-stage problem in Wink, too, one that is structurally
reminiscent of both Childs and Girgensohn. In a first pass Wink inter-
prets material in an entirely conventional historical-critical manner.
After that his psychological-therapeutic model comes into play.
A witness to how resilient and many-sided this two-stage model
326 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

is may be seen not least in the materialistic biblical exegesis of M.

Clévenot. Here as well the presupposition remains that in the first pass
a historical-critical exegesis is produced. After that the result gleaned
from the first pass is situated in a materialistically understood life con-
text—which however now sovereignly determines the sense of the text.
All the forms of fundamental criticism of method that we have just
touched on show commonality: they regard the historical-critical
method as insufficient. Historical criticism does not achieve that which
an interpretation of the Bible ought to.
At the beginning we posed the question: do we even need a
method? To find an answer we wanted to listen to current criticism of
method. We have come to see the shape of this criticism of method, even
if only by some examples. What we see is this: even the most radical
form of the criticism of method assumes that we do need a method. No
one in the discussion above has called for a fundamental renunciation
ofit.'?
We are aware that we have not thereby answered the question of
whether we even need a method for interpretation of Scripture. What we
have done is establish a fact that needs to be taken into account. But we
must now take up the question of what the voices of earlier and earliest
Christians have to add to our search for an answer.

METHODICAL INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE IN

JESUS AND THE EARLY CHURCH
We begin this overview with Jesus’ interpretation of Scripture. Research
has learned more and more that it needs to pay heed to Jesus as teacher.
Let us state at the outset that Judaism at the dawn of the common
era experienced a flowering of scriptural interpretation. Jews were truly
a “people of the book.” And more: there was, as G. Vermes emphasized,
a fundamental unity in the exegetical tradition of the time'*—regardless
of whether we speak of Pharisee, Qumran, or Jewish Christian inter-
pretation. Richard N. Longenecker, in striking parallel to L. Goppelt, has
 REVELATION AND METHOD @ 327

worked out four kinds of interpretation common in Jewish exegesis of

the first century A.D.: “literalist,” “midrashic;’ “typological,” and “alle-
gorical” (Goppelt’s categories were: “literal,” “symbolic,” “typological,”
and “allegorical”’).'* This exegetical tradition rested on two basic pillars:
#1) the starting point-of inspired words, and #2) the acceptance of a mul-
tiple sense of meaning in Scripture, which in turn was made possible by
the conception of inspiration.'°
Today there is widespread agreement that both basic pillars of all
four kinds of interpretation listed above were part of Jesus’ use of
- Scripture.'’' That is even true of “literal” exegesis.'s? Here see Matthew
5:18; 22:31f. Jesus even makes use of a few scribal interpretive rules,
like the much-favored reasoning from the lesser to the greater (kal
wahomer). Examples would be Matthew 7:11; Luke 12:28; John 7:23;
10:34—36.' Inference in the opposite direction, from the greater to the
lesser, is also present (e.g., Mt 10:25). In other places one gets the
impression that Jesus, similar to the rabbis, used a doubled proof from
Scripture, adducing support from, say, the Torah and the Prophets (cf.
Mt 12:3-—5). The phrase “again it is written” as employed by Jesus in
Matthew 4:7 points to the desire to avoid contradictions in Scripture.'*
The common question “Have you not read... ?” (RSV), or the presup-
position of “reading” in Scripture, again shows Jesus’ involvement in the
scribal, thoroughly methodical interpretation of his time (cf. Mt 12:3, 5;
19:4; 21:16, 42; 22:31; 24:15; Lk 10:26). Especially weighty is the
observation that Jesus taught his disciples like a Jewish rabbi would
teach his.'> In any case a portion of his sayings were consciously
formed so as to be suited for memorization (cf. Mt 6:9; 28:20; Lk
11:1f.). Someone proceeding in this fashion is thinking methodically.
To summarize: Jesus certainly prescribed no binding “method” for
his followers. But still less did he forbid them to employ methodical
interpretation of Scripture. He rather encouraged them by the example
of his earthly activity to regard Scripture in a methodical-didactic
manner.
The example of the apostles points in the same direction. Once again
328 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

we find in the writings of the New Testament many established rules and
ways of interpreting that were current in Jewish circles.'°* Most of all we
can point here to typological interpretation.'” That is part and parcel of
the prevalent stress on salvation history in the New Testament, as New
Testament figures understood themselves and their times as the fulfillment
of that which was proclaimed in the Old Testament (cf. e.g., 1Pe 1:10—12).
Paul furnishes us with especially rich illustrative material. For “literalis-
tic exegesis” one may note e.g., Galatians 3:16, where the exegesis is rab-
binic in principle.'** We encounter typological exegesis, basically similar
to that used at times by the rabbis, in, e.g., 1 Corinthians 10:1ff.;
2 Corinthians 3:14ff.'°° (Note tupoi, “types; in 1Co 10:6 and tupikos,
“typologically;’ in 10:11.) First Corinthians 9:9f. offers an example of
pesher method (as well as a kal wahomer inference?). So does Galatians
4:25. Paul also makes use of allegory, e.g., in Galatians 4:2 1ff.'°
Inspiration; multiple sense of Scripture; literal, typological, and
allegorical interpretation—these all remained principles of the early
church.'*' lrenaeus'? and Augustine are, moreover, impressive advocates
of salvation-historical schemas proceeding from a carefully reflected
hermeneutic. If one goes on to ponder the Scripture interpretation of the
medieval church; of Luther and Calvin; of a Flacius and Protestant
Scholasticism; of scholarly Pietism as typified, say, in Francke, who
could write the essay “On the Definition of Method in the Study of
Theology,'® or of a Bengel and the preface to his Gnomon—then it
becomes clear that a methodical interpretation of Scripture has been
present consistently among Jesus’ followers.
From a historical point of view, then, we can only issue a decisive
yes to the question: “Do we even need a method?”

INNER REASONS FOR THE NECESSITY OF A METHOD

It is not only the imitatio Christi (imitation of Christ) or consideration
of church history that pushes us toward a method-driven interpretation
of Scripture. Inner reasons come into play, as well.
 REVELATION AND METHOD e 329

One of these reasons involves testing, an ongoing necessity in the

midst of the real conditions of this world. Genuine and false prophecy
required constant testing and differentiation already in Old Testament
times. The instructions given in this regard (e.g., Dt 13:2ff.; 18:20ff.)
demand what we might call a “sanctified rationality’? While false
prophecy often makes its appearance in the garb of ecstasy (e.g., Isa
28:9ff.) and indulges in signs (cf. 1Ki 22: 10ff.; Mt 24:24; 2Th 2:9ff.; Rev
13:11ff.), the necessary testing does not take place in ecstasy. It rather
_ makes use of observation, of reflection, of deductions. Thus, e.g., it is
striking that Jesus often proposed a procedure for arriving at a conclu-
sion so that his opponents might gain clarity about his origin and pur-
POsen(CiMte7 16H oll 22 ffl2-25 fh; 16s ff. 22:4 ff) 2 Assthe
phenomenon of prophecy required testing, so much more did the phe-
nomenon of messiahship. Who is the true Messiah? Jesus appealed to
Scripture to decide this question and to enable Israel to give an answer
(CEaMit 4:4°9,51025217ff..9: 11E: 12:4 fi 152 ff. 21: 16:22:41 f8s-In
5:39; 7:19ff.; 10:34ff.). Precisely in this connection the searching of
Scripture receives high praise from Jesus (Jn 5:39). It should also be
noted here that the investigation of Scripture also gained decisive impor-
tance for understanding Jesus’ suffering and resurrection (Lk 24:25—-27,
44-47; Jn 20:9; 1Co 15:3ff.). And so, as the presence of the Messiah
becomes certainty through testing by the Scripture, insight into the
future of the world and the Lord require testing by Old Testament
Scripture, or by words of Jesus placed on par with Scripture. (Here cf.
Mt 24:15 and Jesus’ eschatological discourses, on the one hand, and
1Th 4:15ff.; 2Th 2:1ff.; 1Ti 4:1ff.; 2Pe 3:2; Jas 5:7ff., on the other.) Not
only eschatology but also ethics must constantly draw its necessary
leading lines from interpretation of the divine Word. First Corinthians 7
is the star example, but so are Romans 13:1ff. and 1 Peter 2:18—25.
Indeed, even the contemporary proclamation of Christ in the earliest
churches still had to be Scripture-tested as it went forth (1Th 5:21; 1Co
14:29; cf. Ac 17:11). Early Christianity even set up the office of
“teacher” in order to take over at least a portion of the necessary test-
330 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

ing. These teachers owe their origin to appointments made by Jesus him-
self (Mt 23:34; 28:20). They played a decisive role in the Palestinian
churches (Jas 3:1ff.). They also quickly came to occupy a leading place
in the oldest churches outside of Palestine, augmenting the authority of
the apostles and prophets (Ac 13:1; 1Co 12:28ff.; Eph 4:11). Discussion
about women’s participation in this instruction (1Co 14:33ff.; 1Ti
2:12ff.; Tit 2:3ff.) makes sense only if teaching and testing of teaching
were central concerns. At the same time the New Testament makes clear
that Christianity is obligated to abide by the apostolic doctrine (Ac 2:42;
1Co 15:11; Gal 1:6ff.; 2Pe 1:12ff.; 2:1ff.; 3:1ff.; 2Jn 9). This ability to
“abide” presupposes testing. All in all we may say that the testing
demanded by the Bible itself necessitates an intellectually ordered inter-
pretation of Scripture, or more precisely a methodologically responsi-
ble interpretation of Scripture. We could also speak of methodeiai tou
diabolou, evil and subversive methods (Eph 6:11); but that is another
subject.
A further reason lies in the need to pass along the message. What
the medieval church sought to vouchsafe as successio (succession) was
actually the unfalsified traditio (tradition). This concern needs to be
taken seriously. Today we would say that the concern is the passing
along of evangelical doctrine. This is thinkable only in close relation to
Scripture. That is to say that evangelical doctrine is biblically grounded
and biblically regulated doctrine. Yet even what Scripture says and the
contents of its statements must be opened up through pondering the bib-
lical writers’ thoughts in their train and implementing the biblical direc-
tives as laid down. This is not a call to an ecstatic state or response any
more than the call to repentance is. It is rather a call for employing
Spirit-directed reason. This too is part of “reasonable service of wor-
ship.” For good reason the following three key expressions crop up
directly after one another (in Ro 12:1f.), serving as the heading of a sec-
tion on the grace gifts: “test” or “prove” (dokimazein), “renewing of the
mind,” and “reasonable service of worship” (logiké latreia). The teach-
ing office is replete with diakonia (service) and paraklesis (encourage-
 REVELATION AND METHOD @ 331

ment), with logos (word, instruction), sophia (wisdom), and gnosis

(knowledge) (Ro 12:7f.; 1Co 12:8; Jas 3:13ff.) but not with visions and
ecstasy or direct inspiration. In Philippians 4:8f. the teaching and tradi-
tion process is connected to both reflection (Jogizesthai) and to praxis
(prassein). Observation also plays a central role. In 2 Peter 1:12-15
remembrance and memory (hypomimneskein, mnémeé) are decisive for
the future of doctrine. All of this amounts to a prescription for ordered
reflection, or what we in modern times call “method.”
. Method is a term that points to a means that others can make use
of, too. If my method is to be usable by others, I must #1) realize and
#2) make clear to others the path I am claiming to follow. By the way,
the latter step (making clear to others) is the original sense of the Greek
word hermeneia, from which our word hermeneutic derives, according
to A. Boeckh.'® But how can I make my interpretation clear to others if
my interpretation did not follow a certain order of thoughts—if it had
no “method”? How can others follow along if the steps I took to arrive
at my interpretation reflect no certain connections and therefore cannot
be reconstructed by someone seeking to follow the course my mind
took? Precisely because it is biblical-evangelical doctrine, Christian
doctrine is not possible without method.
A third reason for method lies in the realm of mission. It is worth
pointing out that the missionary sermons in the book of Acts were
thought through intensively (Ac 2:14ff.; 3:12ff; 10:34ff.; 13:16ff.;
17:22ff.). These sermons arrest the hearers in their real situation. They
convey the reasons for the message that are understandable to the hear-
ers. They make use of the data that are available to the hearers, whether
this is Scripture citations or a line of poetry (Ac 17:28 quotes Aratus).'®
Without a certain doctrinal development, for which there was of course
already a precedent in Judaism, such missions proclamation would have
been unthinkable. Mission in the New Testament sense is more than an
excitement-filled testimony. It is most of all intellectual mission. The
root of this form of Christian mission is Jesus. His solicitation of Israel
did not consist of emotional or suggestive speeches but in teaching and
332 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

proclamation (Mt 4:23; 9:35). He appealed more to the will and the
understanding than to feeling and sense of excitement (cf. Lk 11:27f.;
12:20f.; 23:27-31). Early Christian mission tended heavily in the direc-
tion of a doctrinal evangelism. The mission command of Matthew
28:19f. stands out as both typical and impressive. Mission activity fol-
lowing that command requires teaching that is methodologically
ordered.
A fourth reason for method involves apologetics. The term apol-
ogy and its related verb play a surprisingly positive role in the New
Testament. Leaving aside for the moment certain examples Paul affords
(cf. Acts; 2Ti 4:16), we find elsewhere an entire group of statements by
Jesus (Lk 12:11; 21:14), Paul (1Co 9:3; 2Co 7:11; Php 1:7, 16), and Peter
(1Pe 3:15f.). These statements bear common features. The best known
is 1 Peter 3:15: “Always be ready to give an answer [pros apologian] to
every person who demands an account from you. . . 2” Since this is to
take place “with humility” (v. 16), and since humility is a central com-
ponent in all New Testament doctrine (Mt 11:29; Jas 3:13ff.), such
“apology” does not consist in outbursts or juristic tactics. The form is
rather suited to the doctrine. It is most surprising, to be sure, that the
New Testament does not prescribe silence in the face of persecution,
interrogation, trial, and the like—Jesus’ behavior in Matthew 26:63;
27:12, 14 (cf. 1Pe 2:23!) might have at least suggested this—but rather
missionary witness! That is what Jesus himself intended (Mt 10:18ff.;
Lk 12:11f.; 21:12f.). That is what the resurrected One announced to Saul
in Damascus (Ac 9:15f.). Later that is how Paul made sense of his
Roman imprisonment (Php 1:7, 16). Peter makes this an obligation of
Christian congregations (1Pe 3:15). “Apology” in the New Testament,
then, is not a shameful occasion, not a defensive lashing out. It is car-
ried out with devotion, trusting in the leading of the Spirit, as an excel-
lent chance for witness. This outlook makes correct understanding of
passages like Acts 22:1; 24:10; 25:8, 16; 26:1f., 24 possible. The dis-
tinctiveness of this testimony lies not only in the unusual nature of the
listeners, which included the representative of earthly government and
 REVELATION AND METHOD e 333

therefore afforded what we might call official publicity for Paul’s mes-
sage. Its distinctiveness also consists in its exposure of the reasons for
unbelief. Ultimately it is participation in the trial carried on by the Holy
Spirit with the world (Jn 16:8ff.). Since churches in the West have long
been relatively untotiched by persecution, and since apologetics is vir-
tually in ruins there as a result of ecclesiastical relativism, we have a hard
time dealing with such matters today. But that does not change the bib-
lical task of apologetics. And apologetics is another area that cannot
_ move forward without methodological interpretation of Scripture.
So, along with historical reasons, a whole series of other reasons
(testing, doctrine, mission, apologetics) arise that make a method of
interpreting Scripture necessary. Reflection to this point has already
turned up a number of substantive elements that belong to such a
“method”: ordered thought, a connection of intellectual steps (coher-
ence), an understandable presentation, testability, feasibility, Spirit-
guided rationality (“reason”), confutation of the reasons for
unbelief—and all this in a unity of pondering the biblical writers’
thoughts in their train and implementing the biblical directives as laid
down, i.e., a unity of reflection and praxis.'
Speaking in concrete terms now, however, what kind of method?

POSSIBILITIES OF A METHODICAL INTERPRETATION

OF SCRIPTURE
PRECRITICAL SCRIPTURE INTERPRETATION

One of the surprising developments in more recent hermeneutical dis-

cussion is the discovery of the positive aspects of precritical method(s).
Childs, e.g., has raised the demand that we rediscover the “precritical”
tradition.'” Even where the indispensability of modern historical criti-
cism is emphasized, as in the work of G. Strecker,'®* the advantages of
earlier exegesis still come into view.'®
What is behind this new trend? One motive is certainly the dis-
tance that modern exegesis has gained from the battles of the eighteenth
334 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

century. This distance, together with much dedicated work in the area
of church history, makes possible a less biased assessment of precritical
interpretive science. A second motive lies in the awareness that since the
eighteenth century we have failed to solve quite a number of important
problems. Among these “unsolved basic hermeneutical problems” K.
Lehmann finds e.g., “reason and revelation,” the “right of a theological
exegesis,” “insight into one’s own contingence,’ and the “ministry of the
interpretation of Scripture.”
A third motive is the awareness of failure to fulfill our own
demands. This is true, e.g., with respect to the objectivity of research.
Thus F. C. Baur wanted to “apprehend” the state of affairs given to us
in the Bible in its “pure objectiveness.”"”' Similarly W. Wrede wished to
work “as objectively . . . as possible.’ Since that time we have come to
realize that such “objective;’ presuppositionless exegesis is not possible.
The same goes for overcoming a “dogmatic conception of
Christianity:’'” In recent decades we have come to understand that a new
“critical orthodoxy” has arisen that simply refuses to countenance any-
thing that runs against its “critical conclusions.’ This orthodoxy under-
takes to label rival conceptions (salvation history, covenant theology,
etc.) as not “dogmatically legitimate.”
A fourth motive consists in uncertainty that the progress being
sought outweighs the damage caused by bidding farewell to precritical
conditions. Even A. Gunneweg, who declared the historical-critical
method to be the only “scientifically proven method,’ admits that in the
use of that method “the fundamental and essential importance of the
Bible, as upheld in the ancient church and—elsewhere—in the
Reformation, was not preserved.’ G. Strecker cited “three factors”
favoring precritical “biblical theology”: #1) “the material unity of Old
and New Testament,’ #2) “the integrity of the biblical canon,’ and #3)
“the identity of Scriptural doctrine and systematic theology.’ Strecker
then continued: “The history of New Testament theology” has been the
“history of the criticism and dissolution of the concept of ‘biblical the-
ology.’’'” What sense can such a “history” make?
 REVELATION AND METHOD e 335

Down as far as B. Baumgarten, hermeneutics encompassed prac-

tical application.® Since then, however, exegesis has been emancipated
from practical application. There was a time when the “solution to the
hermeneutical problem” was foreseen as coming through the historical-
critical method.'” Now, however, we languish rather in a “methodolog-
ical crisis’’"*° No wonder there is renewed attention and openness to
precritical, pre-Enlightenment exegesis.
Entirely apart from such references to the value of precritical exe-
_ gesis, we will have to investigate carefully the extent to which an accep-
tance of certain elements of this precritical interpretation of Scripture
may be feasible for us.
What was distinctive about it? H. W. Frei describes it this way:
“Western Christian reading of the Bible in the days before the rise of his-
torical criticism . .. was usually strongly realistic, i.e., at once literal and
historical.’'*' Based on that, we could characterize precritical exegesis
as “literal-historical:’ We are reminded that both these qualities, literal-
istic and historical, can be shown to have been present in the exegesis
of ancient Judaism, the New Testament, and the early church. Materially
we are also not so very far removed from the “historical-grammatical
interpretive method” of Theodore of Mopsuestia.'* If one reflects on
Bengel’s occasional definition, according to which theology is “gram-
matica in spiritus sancti verbis occupata” (“philology concentrated on
the words of the Holy Spirit’”’),'* then the designation “grammatical-his-
torical’ does not appear to be too unsuitable. On the other hand Ernesti
and his school selected precisely the term grammatical-historical to
characterize their form of Scripture interpretation.'* In 1810 Karl
August Gottlieb Keil of Leipzig made the words “basic principles of
grammatical-historical interpretation” part of the title of his Handbook
of Hermeneutics. He emphatically championed the necessity of “gram-
matical-historical” interpretation.'* In view of the fact that a segment of
early historical-critical criticism wanted to use “grammatical-historical”
to designate its work, this designation is not suitable to characterize pre-
critical exegesis. Frei proposed that we speak of a “precritical realistic
336 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

reading.”'* In any case we must be aware that it would be misleading to

speak of a “literalistic” interpretation of Scripture. For in spite of wide-
spread stress on the sensus literalis (literal sense), there was also open-
ness to a spiritual meaning in Scripture, however halting that openness
might have been. In this connection it is clearly pietistic exegesis that
favors the multiple meaning of Scripture. By way of preliminary sum-
mary we may say at this point that precritical exegesis sought to work
with philological precision, historical realism, and multidimensionality
as a result of its conviction regarding inspiration.
Now let us look at a few examples of how evangelical exegesis
from the Reformation to the Enlightenment has taken shape.
Matthias Flacius’ Clavis Scripturae of 1567 is foundational.
Dilthey called it the “first significant, and perhaps most profound, of
these [hermeneutical] writings.”'” Flacius avoids applying a universal
doctrine of understanding to the Bible. He rather unfolds a biblical
hermeneutic, forged in dialogue with Scripture, that can serve as the
starting point for a general hermeneutic.'** Flacius belongs, then, among
the fathers of a hermeneutica sacra (sacred hermeneutic). God is the
originator of Scripture. Holy Scripture as a whole is inspired and cre-
ated by God.'® It is therefore not permissible to introduce principles that
are alien to the Bible for the interpretation of the Bible.'° Flacius does
not forget that the Bible is largely determined by its purpose. It is an
“instrument unto eternal life’”'*' It should lay hold of man for this sav-
ing purpose and transform him accordingly.'* By means of this instru-
ment God establishes a relationship with man. The amount of space that
Flacius devotes to reflections on the interpreter is astounding.
Humanism and the Enlightenment demand of the interpreter most of all
erudition (eruditio).'*> For Flacius, man is first blind and dumb before
the Word of God.'* Inherent in his present nature is also doubt of the
truth of the Word.'® It is first the power of the Word, which is also the
power of the Spirit, that renders him capable,of hearing and seeing. In
this encounter with God through the Word, illumination (illuminatio)
takes place by the Holy Spirit, along with restoration (restitutio) to the
 REVELATION AND METHOD @ 337

image of God (imago Dei) and spiritual rebirth.'** Once again: only the
transformed person can understand. Therefore the interpreter must be a
“renewed person” (renatus).'” Flacius follows the “I believe in order to
understand” (credo, ut intelligam) confession of Augustine and
Anselm.'* What we require is not hermeneutical aptitude (aptitudo) and
erudition (eruditio), not congeniality (Kongenialitdt) in the sense
intended by those who favor that term, but the Holy Spirit and in that
sense inspiration.'*? We must first, therefore, in God-granted contrition
(rebus divinis) forsake trust in our own intellect.” The Christian inter-
preter cannot, however, dispense with Christian experience (experien-
tia).2°' One notes that there is a coherent line from Luther’s
tentatio-oratio-meditatio (struggle-prayer-reflection) to the experientia
of Flacius and stress on the practical piety (praxis pietatis) in the theol-
ogy of Pietism right down to the praxis-centeredness of the interpreter
in J. T. Beck. Not until the interpreter experiences unconditioned alter-
ation through Scripture does knowledge of the real take place and have
its due impact on interpretation.””
Even judged by today’s standards, Flacius’ exegetical procedure is
impressively careful. Interpretation proceeds in three great stages: #1)
grammatica intellectio, i.e., philological understanding, the apprehen-
sion of individual words and of the context; #2) theologica tractatio, i.e.,
theological preparation, or apprehension of the theological intention of
the speaker; #3) cognitio practica, i.e., practical knowledge, under-
standing of the text for our Christian life.”” It is not difficult to find here
steps that are still recognized as requisite today: opening up of the text—
theological interpretation—meditation or homiletical sketch. The
numerous individual steps which must be pondered in the course of
grammatica intellectio or theologica tractatio feel familiar to us. Along
with investigation of the words and grammar, Flacius places questions
concerning author, recipients, object, reason for writing, background,
conditions, literary genre, structure, context, inner-biblical compar-
isons, and major point.2“ Here is the point where historical lore is
brought in, e.g., concerning natural science, ancient crafts and trades,
338 e BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

topography, anthropology, astronomy, meteorology, wild animal life,

legal and political life, economy, trade, geography, ethnology. And then
most of all Palestine’s flora and fauna are to be factored in along with
the customs of the people and the country, and indeed those of the entire
ancient Near East. Obviously the whole scope of history generally is
also brought to bear. Here we find help through use of ancient authors
like Appian, Didorus Siculus, Strabo, Pliny, Aristotle, Dioskur, and
Josephus.?° Moldaenke declares: “This interest in concrete historical
material . . . is thoroughly characteristic of Flacius.”° Flacius’ interest
in chronology is well known. Already for Flacius—Bengel is not the
pioneer here—biblical chronology furnishes “the scaffolding” for the
entire world-historical outline.”” Flacius wishes to contain the subjec-
tivity of the interpreter by means of the analogia fidei (analogy of
faith).?°
Flacius provided a basis for evangelical Scripture interpretation
that endured for centuries. If we compare his work to the exegesis that
is dominant today, we are struck by the following. First, comparatively
little has changed in the individual steps. Almost all procedures of mod-
ern text analysis are also present in Flacius, at least in principle: philo-
logical-grammatical investigation, structure, context, comparison with
contemporary history of the time, history of the literary forms (form
criticism), redaction criticism, tradition criticism, indeed history-of-reli-
gions comparison, scope. Literary criticism could be characterized as a
modern achievement. Second, an eminent historical interest must be
acknowledged to be present in Flacius’ work. Third, Flacius makes vis-
ible in rigorous fashion the conditions of understanding. But it is pre-
cisely at this point that the differences between Flacius and modern
exegesis come into view. Not only does Flacius give positive consider-
ation to the analogia fidei (analogy of faith); he also demands an inter-
pretatio fidei (interpretation in keeping with faith). This documents a
hermeneutical bond with the fellowship of faith of the church. It is no
“coincidence” that his third main interpretive step is the cognitio prac-
tica (practical understanding), which amounts to the transition to
 REVELATION AND METHOD e 339

preaching and instruction. This third step then was lost at the
Enlightenment, a consequence of its emancipation from the church.
Finally, we discover two further decisive differences. One is rooted in
Flacius’ interest in real biblical history, which compels him to adopt a
salvation-historical interpretation. The Enlightenment, in contrast,
replaced history with morality. The other difference is rooted in an
understanding of Scripture for which biblical answers to fundamental
theological questions were normative; for Flacius this understanding
assumed the unity and inspiration of the Word of God. The
Enlightenment could accept none of these pillars of Flacius’ under-
standing of Scripture.
In Flacius’ wake there was at first no revolutionary renewal of
evangelical Scripture interpretation. The “hermeneutical revolution’
of the Enlightenment preempted any such development. In the two cen-
turies or so after Flacius there was only shifting of emphasis, with first
one concern and then another receiving attention within a framework
like Flacius drew up.
Old Protestant Scholasticism at the time of a Colovius, K6nig,
Hollaz, and Quenstedt devoted itself most of all to the doctrine of
Scripture.?'° The differences between Lutherans and the Reformed were
held within bounds.?"
Hermeneutics experienced a revival through covenant theology,
which was pursued most of all by Reformed thinkers. It stressed the his-
torical side of the Bible. Chronology and prophecy came in for renewed
scrutiny; the special character of the respective salvation-historical
epochs was worked out; the proof-text approach to dogmatics was called
into question to some extent. This did not, however, lead to biblical crit-
icism in the modern sense.”
A comprehensive hermeneutical interest then awoke within
Pietism. It recognized the challenge posed by rationalism and the
Enlightenment and opted to face up to it. Various accents and outlooks
came to the surface as the challenge was answered. To speak summarily
of “Pietism” in the singular is therefore just as risky as summarizations
340 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

of other theological trends. A. H. Francke and his school directed spe-

cial attention to the person of the interpreter. Scripture interpretation and
theological science were conceived as a part of the Christian life. As a
result, Francke saw in theology a “means of furthering the kingdom of
God under the leading of the Holy Spirit?”'? Francke’s student Johann
Jakob Rambach emphasized that the exegete must be illumined by the
Holy Spirit and led by love to Jesus and his Word.?"* As for Pietism else-
where, the necessity of a theologia regenitorum (theology done by
regenerate persons) remained uncontested.?'* A second stress in Francke
was on applicatio (application). He demanded of his students that they
“become more pious through the reading of Scripture-”?'* The collegia
biblica (Bible college) was to serve that end; it was not necessary to be
a theologian to attend it. Ongoing prayer was essential as well. In
Francke’s own words: “No theology lecture is held that does not appeal
to the heart and that does not attempt to pierce the soul of every
hearer’”*” Without the transition into Christian praxis, all remains dead
orthodoxy. Here there is in principle no separation between the
preacher’s pulpit and the professor’s podium. Pietism, centered in Halle,
therefore responds to the flood of rationalism in its self-proclaimed
emancipation from the church by extending church to the lecture hall.
Over against emphasis on reason Francke states: “Everything depends,
however, on reason subordinating itself to the faith?”?'* Francke escapes
the danger of superficiality that can easily arise through such theologi-
cal evangelism. Like Bengel he devotes himself to the original text and
seeks to improve Luther’s translation of the Bible.?!? Both Francke’s
Praelectiones hermeneuticae (1717) and J. J. Rambach’s Institutiones
hermeneuticae sacrae (1724) attest to the seriousness of Pietism’s
hermeneutical-theological effort.
Applicatio (application) certainly possessed high value for J. A.
Bengel, as well. But he was far more concerned than Francke with the
content of revelation as such. It is not insignificant that attention to the
text is mentioned first in Bengel’s famous aphorism “Te totum applica
ad textum—rem totam applica ad te” (“Apply yourself wholly to the
 REVELATION AND METHOD @ 341

text—apply the text wholly to yourself”). Bengel was among the

founders of the discipline now called “textual criticism??? Well
schooled in Cicero, he pursued investigation of the original text in
exquisite detail, leaving no stones unturned and following every possi-
ble lead to its énd. Bengel was in reality a biblical theologian. The com-
ments in his Gnomon are still worth reading for the exegete today. Along
with philological work, Bengel’s second point of emphasis was the sal-
vation-historical conception of the content of revelation. His sometimes
peculiar chronological outlines serve this salvation-historical concep-
tion and open up the Bible’s contents. In all this Bengel believed he was
being guided by Scripture itself. His primary historical interest moved
him to make distinctions that were almost suspect for Protestant
Scholasticism of his day. Thus he distinguished, in a way similar to
Theodore of Mopsuestia,”! various forms and degrees of inspiration.””
Like Augustine he could in principle view an apostolic lapse of mem-
ory as possible. On the other hand Bengel advocated the principle of tak-
ing Scripture in its entirety. He distanced himself from the “degenerate
disciples” of Luther who disputed the theological integrity of the book
of James. The book of Revelation, which Protestant Scholasticism occa-
sionally ranked as “deuterocanonical;’ was for Bengel the indispensable
touchstone of the entire Bible. In sharp distinction to rationalism, with
which he was acquainted especially through interaction with Spinoza,
he rejected the praeiudicium proprium (innate prejudgment) of human
reason in order to place himself fully under the praeiudicium (prejudg-
ment) of God in his revelation. Revelation and Scripture were identical
for him—a position that he championed not least against the pneumat-
ics and prophets of separatistic sects of his day. Part of Bengel’s basic
approach also included giving an account of a methodological way to
do exegesis. His ideal here was a “suitably precise investigation.’ He
held the following to be imperative: philological investigation right
down to emphasis and effect of the biblical writers; attention to context
and ancient history as well as other religions; relation to other state-
ments in the Bible, i.e., inner-biblical comparison; integration into the
342 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

appropriate portion of the salvation-historical economy; and the most

precise possible conception of intent. For support he adduced ancient lit-
erature such as Josephus or Philo. For theological interpretation he pon-
dered patristic interpretation as well as that of older church history.
Following this came homiletical application. In short, Bengel’s proce-
dure in its individual parts points to painstaking care very much similar
to that seen in Flacius. He passed along this carefulness to the school of
thought that followed him. Frei’s assessment about Protestant
Scholasticism and Pietism is justified, at least when applied to Bengel:
“They followed the Reformers and a large consensus of Western
Christendom from earliest times.”
All stages of precritical evangelical exegesis between Flacius and
Pietism showed the following five characteristics: #1) The unity of
Scripture and revelation was foundational. The result of this was the
exclusive normativity of Scripture. No other authority could rival
Scripture. The formula sola scriptura was upheld right down to the time
of Pietism. It included the unity and inspiration of Scripture. #2) Love
for philologically exact work on the text was also characteristic. No
wonder that so-called textual criticism arose in precritical exegesis and
was not a child of the Enlightenment. This in no way shook the primacy
of the sensus literalis (literal sense). Yet in virtually all cases, though in
varying measures, a multiple meaning of Scripture was assumed. This
too mirrored the conviction that God is the real originator of Scripture.
#3) The renewal of the Christian interpreter through the Holy Spirit was
constantly presupposed. Without exception the interpretation of
Scripture was integrated into the life of the church. There should be no
disjunction between life and doctrine in the interpreter. Interpretation
aims ultimately at preaching and instruction. #4) A special historical
interest grows out of interchange with the history-laden biblical texts.
Prior to the Enlightenment this interest is overwhelmingly salvation-his-
torical in nature. In this understanding the historical is at the same time
the ultimately real. The more salvation-historical, the more real! Veering
off into purely thematic categories or into a purely static scriptural mean
 REVELATION AND METHOD @ 343

was thereby precluded. #5) We find everywhere a methodologically

reflected interpretation. All the essential elements of a method worthy
of the name are present: self-awareness of one’s own procedure, the
coherence of each individual step, testability, feasibility (given certain
presuppositiofis), understandable and learnable presentation, striving for
unity between reflection and praxis.
If one’s starting point is biblical revelation, then none of the char-
acteristics cited above can be denied or dismissed as false. Then why
not take up precritical, philological-theological methodology once
more? The modern outcry that to do this makes one a “fundamentalist”
is in any case not a cogent argument against such a reclamation.
There are, however, other reasons that hinder facile return to the
earlier approach. In “Inner Reasons for the Necessity of a Method”
above, we pressed for the necessity of methodological interpretation of
Scripture. Here both testing and apologetics were accorded an impor-
tant role. Both, testing and apologetics, deal with questions that hearers
of the message pose to the Christian community and its proclamation.
These questions are colored by the respective times in which they arise.
This alters the way that the Christian message is unfolded. Interpretation
is concerned to facilitate a focused and timely unfolding of this mes-
sage. Therefore, it cannot simply duplicate earlier modes of approach or
ignore the history that has transpired since earlier methods saw their
own heyday. To that extent we cannot get outside of the history that the-
ology has undergone since the time of precritical, philological-theolog-
ical methods. However—and here we differ radically from historical
criticism—we also do not make this history and its Enlightenment
agenda into a second authority alongside of Scripture. The essential test-
ing and apologetic functions forbid, however, a facile return to precriti-
cal exegesis as if nothing has happened in the intervening generations.
In view of shifts in outlook that have come about, two factors stand
above all others in essential importance. #1) The first consists in the
enormously heightened historical consciousness. Before our eyes lie
entire causal chains that we use to explain the psyche and the course of
344 e BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

an individual’s life, the developments of political and economic history,

and indeed the progress of the whole cosmos to an astonishing degree.
Mystery has receded to the margin of the cosmos and in part even van-
ished from the margin altogether. From this starting point texts of the
past have now been read “historically” for decades and centuries. This
particular way of assessing history, or what is called history, is therefore
very much more pronounced than in the precritical era. #2) The second
factor consists in an enormously heightened consciousness of autonomy.
Kant, in whom the Enlightenment was fully embodied, still acknowl-
edged the necessity for thought to take God into account.“ In modern
times autonomous man does, following Kant, think of a God, but mostly
due to anxiety etsi deus daretur (that God might exist). Modern man
does not want to take account of him, however, because by his own esti-
mation he has arrived at a point where he no longer needs a God. The
question, How do I stay healthy? is more important today than the ques-
tion, How do I receive a gracious God? The God who for Kant was still
guarantor of the good, and was necessary for the good to come about,
becomes guarantor of the good person under the banner of the “new reli-
giosity’*> which promises man security for man’s own sake.
Given the prevalence of the stress on historicality and advanced
sense of autonomy of man, a simplistic repristination of precritical exe-
gesis is not possible. This insight leads to three essential points of ori-
entation: #1) we need to seek out helpful examples of postcritical
interpretation of Scripture; #2) we need to conceive a method that is
suited to the skewed cultural outlook of our day; #3) we need to make
concrete the nonnegotiable insights of precritical methods, even today.

J. G.HAMANN

No orientation regarding a viable hermeneutical outline can afford to

overlook Johann Georg Hamann (1730-88).
While as early as 1949 “the name J. G. Hamann” was “suddenly
in the air once more,””* interest in this author has grown to such an
 REVELATION AND METHOD e 345

extent in recent decades that one can almost speak of a Hamann-

Renaissance. One notable indicator here is P. Stuhlmacher’s hermeneu-
tics book Grundrissen zum Neuen Testament. While the first edition
(1979) did not even mention Hamann in the index, the second edition
(1986) contamed a‘special section on Hamann (pp. 140ff.).
Occasionally “Luther, Calvin, and Hamann” are even placed alongside
each other.””
Hamann possessed nearly encyclopedic knowledge. After his con-
version in London on March 31, 1758, he placed this knowledge in the
service of his redeemer Jesus Christ: “The smali stream of my written
works flowed out toward this King whose name, like his praise, is great
and unrecognized.” With polished literary weapons he fought against
the reign of the Enlightenment as the “‘sage of the North” (he hailed
from K6nigsburg, a northern German region). Contemporaries
reproached “the chaotic opacity of his writings”? he referred to him-
self apostrophically as “le Sophiste arctique” (the sophist of the north)
in his “Letzen Blatt.”
Hamann sought quite consciously to hold high the banner of
Christianity and of Lutheranism.” At the same time, while sharing all
“commitment to the concerns of Protestant Scholastic conceptions of
Scripture,’ he “pointed ahead to the more recent historically oriented
scientific study of the Bible?””*!
On a closer look at his view of the Bible, striking at the outset is
his love for the Bible as a book. For him the Bible is “the book of God”
and a “means of grace:””? “Scripture, the Word of God, the Bible,” is
more glorious and perfect than nature.’® It gives us—this was his own
experience—God’s “saving word” which is “the dearest gift of divine
grace:”?*4 He speaks, clearly, of the form of Scripture as given. In this
connection Hamann used the well-known formulation “God an
author!’”’35 He praised the fact “that the Holy Spirit set forth for us a
book to convey his Word,” and he called this book “the charter of our
faith?”°° Yet with the same force he maintained that the enscripturation
of divine revelation was the result of divine “condescension.” The Holy
346 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

Spirit surrendered himself to this humiliation when he created this book.

Seen from the outside, Scripture is comparable to the “old rags” used to
haul Jeremiah out of the cistern.”** He regarded the unadorned Greek of
the New Testament as a virtual proof of earliest Christian, authentic
provenance: “the Oriental aspects of our pulpit style lead us back to the
cradle of our race and our religion’? He emphasized that the New
Testament confronts us with “historical writings with genuine under-
standing?’*°
How does the humble form of Scripture and its historical charac-
ter, on the one hand, relate to its divine character, on the other hand? It
would be tempting to relegate the divine aspect to some “real” revela-
tion lying beyond Scripture’s humble form, and to regard the humble
form as a human testimony, full of errors and requiring our critical
analysis. As we know, this is the path that theological hermeneutics has
often traveled. Yet in Hamann we encounter a different solution.
Hamann is able to hold the human and divine dimensions of Scripture
together by conceiving them as arising from God’s gracious conde-
scension.”*! God wanted us to have Scripture in just the form that it lies
before us today. It therefore remains a unified whole.
This view of Scripture held by Hamann stands up splendidly in
interaction with Moses Mendelssohn and Gotthold Ephraim Lessing.
Obviously in conscious opposition to Lessing Hamann says (in
“Golgatha und Scheblimini’’) that he knows “of no eternal truths but the
incessantly temporal.”**? That means that God speaks nowhere else but
in the historical biblical revelation. Anyone who, like Lessing, wishes to
seek eternal truths beyond or off to the side of the historical presented
by the Bible presumes to enter “into the inner counsels of the divine
understanding.”** On the other hand it should be said that “without
authority the truth of history” vanishes “with what has taken place
itself’’“* God reveals himself in historical truths. Here we. stand once
more before the mystery of God, who as the Holy Spirit and for the sake
of our redemption “humbles himself” in that he “has become a history
 REVELATION AND METHOD @ 347

writer of the most trivial, the most contemptible, the most insignificant
incidents on earth.”*5
From all this it is clear that Hamann’s starting point is the inspi-
ration of the Bible. According to 2 Peter 1:21, God’s Spirit “moved” the
authors of the Bible.* In language much like that of Protestant
Scholasticism, Hamann states that “the Holy Spirit” revealed himself
“through the human pens of holy men that were impelled by him.’
Here Hamann even draws a parallel between the incarnation of God’s
Son and the enscripturation of revelation by the Holy Spirit. The “ser-
vant form” of both leads, however—in stark contrast to Enlightenment
and modern dogmatics—not to a deficiency but to encounter of God
with man and to salvation. Hamann’s view has rightly been called ver-
bal inspiration.**
The result of the inspiration of the entire Scripture is the “unity of
the divine revelation’’? The result of its character of divine revelation
is its exclusive normativity for faith: “Christianity’s faith does not rest
in the doctrinal opinions of philosophy.-’*° Moreover, it would be an
insult to God’s redemptive self-humiliation if “man used the book of
God as an object for criticism and philosophizing:’ Hamann therefore
consciously excludes any content criticism of the Bible.”
Scripture’s inspiration implies the necessity of interpreting it under
the leading of the Holy Spirit. Hamann states explicitly that “under-
standing this book [= the Bible]” “cannot be attained by any means
other than the same Spirit who moved the authors of this book.”?*? For
knowledge of the divine Word Hamann viewed himself as requiring
“precisely the presence [of that Holy Spirit] by whom the Word has been
written.” He is “the only way to the understanding of Scripture.”**? The
Spirit’s leading does not bring about some ecstatic condition but rather
love for, humility before, and trust in Scripture. “Humility of heart,” says
Hamann, “is the only state of mind proper to reading the Bible, and it is
the indispensable preparation for such reading.”* In order to know the
divine Friend through Scripture’s servant form, one needs the “illu-
mined, aroused, jealous eyes of a friend, a confidant, a lover’”* It is
348 e@ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

therefore admissible to see Hamann as still another proponent of a the-

ologia regenitorum (theology of regeneration).?*°
The person who venerates the miracle of divine condescension can
only be critical of the deification of reason in the so-called
Enlightenment. How arrogant, that it viewed truth as resting in itself,
that it set itself on the same level as the divine—even if it was by means
of indirect revelation in the form of abstractions and concepts. Hamann
asked, “For what is much-vaunted reason with its universality, infalli-
bility, exuberance, certainty, and evidence? An ens rationis (mental con-
struct), a chimera, to which the raucous superstition of irrationality
ascribes divine attributes.’ Reason, superstitiously aggrandized, is in
fact the reason possessed by unredeemed sinners, who live on the basis
of their own righteousness. “Tremble!”’ cries Hamann, “Woe to you mis-
led mortals, who make the nobility of your intentions your righteous-
ness!”’ And to those who seek to measure the miracles of the Bible by
their own standards Hamann offers this food for thought: “The system
of this current year, which excuses you from furnishing proof for your
first principles, will someday be a fairy tale.’ “Let us please not assess
the truth of things according to how easy we find it to imagine them to
ourselves in a certain fashion,”**
Hamann’s grasp of the humble form of Scripture is distinct in itself
when compared to the then-reigning Protestant Scholastic views. But
there are additional principles that also go beyond Protestant
Scholasticism. One of these principles is that Hamann sees use of the
Bible as the decisive means to acquiring knowledge. In the well-known
analogy to Jeremiah, in which Hamann compares the Bible to the old
rags that could be used to pull Jeremiah out of the cistern, Hamann
states: “Not their [i.e., the rags’] appearance but the service they ren-
dered him, and the use that he made of them, redeemed him from mor-
tal danger. Jer XXX VIII 11—13?°5° Naturally Hamann did not mean that
the Bible became Word of God only as and when use was made of it. It
is God’s Word even apart from its use. But to encounter it aright, to expe-
rience its power and essence, one must put it into practice. That is the
 REVELATION AND METHOD @ 349

way that Joh. Tobias Beck was later to emphasize. A second principle
that goes beyond Protestant Scholasticism lies in Hamann’s reading of
the Bible, which was simultaneously literal and typological.”
Restriction to the sensus literalis (literal sense) does not take place:
“Every stone [of Scripture] on which the Christian lays his head has its
ladder, like the one Jacob saw in a dream [as he slept on a stone].””°! For
that very reason Hamann read the Old Testament like his “own life
story.’ He could identify himself as Cain and as Christ’s murderer, and
he could make identifications between these two.” Hamann comes very
close to a pietistic hermeneutic with his Scripture-bound reclamation of
the sensus literalis (literal sense) and his use of typology.”
In summarizing J. G. Hamann’s hermeneutical insights, one is
astounded by the clarity and force with which Hamann critically
engaged the criticism of the Enlightenment. “Our age is the real age of
criticism, which must subordinate everything to itself?’ explained I. Kant
in his Kritik der reinen Vernunft (Critique of Pure Reason). Hamann
divested reason thus conceived of its arrogant self-proclaimed worth.”
He called man to the “service of God rendered by those who listen?”
Indeed, one could justifiably dub his a “hermeneutic of listening.”
Showing points of similarity to Protestant Scholasticism and to Pietism,
and making both revelation and his personal experience a point of
departure for his argumentation, Hamann championed the interpene-
tration of Word of God and word of man, the inspiration of the whole
of Scripture, the unity of Scripture, the identification of revelation with
the Bible, the exclusive authority of Scripture, the necessity of a the-
ologia regenitorum (theology of regeneration), and the proving of
Scripture by practice of it. The basic lines of the biblical-Reformation
understanding of Scripture are maintained.
At the same time Hamann frees himself from the artificial argu-
ments of Protestant Scholasticism that threaten to crowd the human and
historical out of Scripture. Hamann is free to “acknowledge the human-
ity of the Bible?” From that starting point Hamann opens the possi-
bility of historical labor’ on the Bible, a labor that essentially coincides
350 © BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

with his conception of inspiration because it originates in the conde-

scension of God. If Hamann had been listened to here, the ditch between
the idea of inspiration, on the one hand, and historical biblical exegesis,
on the other, need never have arisen.”
In sum, Hamann is very much more helpful than e.g., today’s
“moderate criticism” (see “So-called Moderate Criticism” below). Yet
we cannot neglect to make a few cautionary comments. One is the fun-
damental fact that Hamann was a homme de lettres (man of letters)*°—
not a theologian or exegete. We cannot expect from him either
systematic-theological formulations or even the unfolding of hermeneu-
tical consequences.” He leaves us with scanty allusions and with witty
statements that are then almost monotonously cited in the literature.
Occasionally more weight is placed on them than they can bear. Not
clarified, e.g., is the relation between condescension and inspiration.
That becomes somewhat clear in the tiff between Hempelmann and
Lindner over the terms condescension and accommodation in Hamann’s
usage.”” Certainly Hamann does not wish God’s “self-lowering” to be
understood as some departure from divine truth. Yet there are open ques-
tions here, especially regarding the historical conditionedness of
Scripture.” Also not thoroughly clear is the relation of the “old rags” in
the form of Scripture to the historical reliability of the Bible. Kahler
could draw this inference from the “old rags” figure: “Apparently it
would not have bothered him [Hamann] to read today’s theories of the
composition and redaction of the biblical books.’”? But that is just the
question: would he indeed not have been “bothered” by current theories
about “community formation,” “secondary expansion,’ “pseudepigra-
phy in the New Testament,” “sources,” and the like? Likewise, we must
ask to what extent Lindner actually betrays Hamann’s “spirit” with his
judgment: “Something of Hamann’s spirit shows itself in Schniewind’s
willingness to engage in critical investigation of the New Testament
without any dogmatic bias.” But precisely such questions and judg-
ments show that Hamann is of limited value as a guide into the thickets
of historical investigation. Added to this is the passion of the literary
 REVELATION AND METHOD @ 351

artist. It is well known that Hamann could write of the Bible that in it
the Holy Spirit, “like someone foolish and daft, indeed like an unholy
and impure spirit of our proud reason, made fables, small despicable
incidents, into the history of heaven and of God?” Anyone who takes
up this view of “history” in Hamann without careful attention to the con-
text can easily twist Hamann into the posture of endorsing historical-
critical interpretation of Scripture.”
J. G. Hamann remains a witness to hermeneutical truths that we
cannot give up. But he beckons us to improve our own hermeneutical
strategy more than he encourages us to replace ours with his.

J. L. S. LUTZ AND J. T. BECK

J. L. Samuel Lutz (1785-1844) and Johann Tobias Beck (1804—78) are

among the first to be commended as helpful examples of noncritical
interpretation of Scripture. Both could be called fathers of “pneumatic
interpretation,” It was Beck, however, who exerted the greater influ-
ence. Both show essential features of precritical interpretation and
attempt to hold fast to them in the present situation. Thus Lutz empha-
sizes the suitability of a “historical-grammatical interpretation.’”* Thus
Beck stresses that Scripture is norma normans (normative standard) and
proceeds from the assumption of Scripture’s unity and unified charac-
ter. In this he is reminiscent of Bengel.” Yet for both Lutz and Beck the
“pneumatic state” of the interpreter is much more at the forefront than
it was for Protestant Scholasticism.”*° Lutz’s view is summed up in the
aphorism “Spirit seeks the spirit?”*' The Holy Spirit lets our “eyes . . .
be healthy” and equips for knowledge of the “inner unity” of
Scripture.”** Therefore both Lutz and Beck underscore the necessity of
the interpreter’s spiritual rebirth.’ J. Wach characterizes Beck with the
statement that he strove for a “believing-scientific” interpretive
method.”* In this connection Wach also points out that for Lutz “inter-
est in life” and for Beck practical application possess high hermeneuti-
cal rank.”*> The value they place on the person of the interpreter becomes
352 © BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

more understandable in view of numerous biographies of “young theo-

logians who then for inner reasons avoid the pulpit.”*°
It is doubtless fruitful to follow Lutz and Beck today in some
respects. What they wished to preserve, we must also preserve. Yet they
did not always succeed at transferring biblical foundations into their
own present era. One deficiency, e.g., is a certain heedlessness of the his-
torical. Precisely this absence of sufficient historical rigor—one could
also term it a tendency to take a stand above history—later helped cause
supporters of pneumatic exegesis like Girgensohn to remain hanging in
a two-stage procedure. Where the independence of the Spirit is stressed
too much, the result is what A. Schlatter called the “severing of Scripture
from history:”*’ The result of such severing is a vacuum, into which a
historically oriented interpretation streams without sufficient control.
Overemphasis of the pneumatic, i.e., elevating the pneumatic alone to
the normative, becomes all the more dangerous today in the presence of
the current “new religiosity.’ In this movement, does not everyone claim
to speak “‘in the Spirit”? Nevertheless, it should not be said that Lutz or
Beck themselves were not sober interpreters. But we can recognize the
starting points of tendencies that we cannot make our own.

ADOLF SCHLATTER

Another helpful example of noncritical interpretation of Scripture is

Adolf Schlatter (1852-1938).
The fact that we are currently enjoying a Schlatter-Renaissance is
all the more commendation of his example. Hasel calls him “a giant?”88
Others called him “unprofessional.”
First, there are impressive points of contact between Beck and his
student Schlatter. Both distance themselves consciously and decisively
from historical criticism.”” Both stress the unity of Scripture. Schlatter’s
well-known line is worth citing: “Unity is necessary for Scripture so that
it may be recognizable and of service to us as God’s Word’?! Both
affirm the inspiration of the entire Scripture.”? Both proceed from the
 REVELATION AND METHOD @ 353

assumption of Scripture’s authority in the sense of norma normans (notr-

mative standard).”* Both also possess a strong interest in praxis.
Characteristic for Schlatter here is the tight relationship between belief,
thought, and will. He states that “our will belongs to the conditions upon
which the success of our thinking is dependent’ On the other hand
faith becomes “the director of our will?°> For Schlatter theology is
finally an “act of worship to God’”** and therefore wrapped up in the
ministry of the Christian community.
Yet Schlatter’s work comprises a “sui generis’”” His difference
from Beck is already recognizable in the manner in which Schlatter
determines the way to knowledge. All human thinking follows a “law
that we must honor as God’s gracious will?”** The intellectual work of
theologians is fundamentally no different from intellectual work in the
other sciences. “The knowing and proving work of the theologian is for-
mally completely similar to that of the natural and historical
researcher.”*? Why? Because every science is determined by the data
with which it has to deal. The first and foundational act of becoming
familiar with the facts and interacting with them he calls “perceiving.”
Perceiving, in turn, expresses what it knows in concepts.*® Human
thought is therefore basically a receptive process—‘first reception, then
production?”"' “The formations that fill us in the form of conceptions
and ideas arise in us according to an ordered process that is implanted
in us. In these formations we are the receivers. Where reception fails,
our ability to produce goes under as well? These statements by
Schlatter force us to recall Ricoeur’s “The event is our master.’ The fun-
damentally receptive form of thought conditions the central role of con-
cepts like “perception,” “observation,” “seeing,” “act of seeing,”
“thearing.”3°? Can, however, God be “perceived”? And can every person
in principle perceive him? Schlatter answers yes. He maintains that the
idea of God is “unavoidable” on the basis of the facts that surround us.**
Our own “vitality” and nature itself show us unambiguously that there
is a personal God.*” There is no knowledge of God only for those “who
cannot make up their minds to be man.” In this view of things athe-
354 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

ism becomes flight from perception; it even becomes ethically “abom-

inable” at the point where “we evade the summons to faith that has
become evident to us.” Conversely, theology’s primary task is to
unfold the states of affairs of which it has caught sight. Dogmatic work
thus calls for “perceiving, and nothing but perceiving’”** Perceiving
occurs as commitment.*” It requires courage: we must “have the courage
to see what we see.”?"°
Where Beck would have spoken of pneuma (Spirit), Schlatter
therefore speaks of courage. Where Beck would have spoken of the the-
ologia regenitorum (theology of regeneration), Schlatter speaks of the
perception that is accessible to every person. Where Beck spoke of
“entering into” “the entirety of divine truth,” in the sense of theocentric,
indeed even Bible-centric, thinking,*"' Schlatter’s starting point is quite
consciously “anthropocentric.’ That extends to the point that Schlatter
handles special theology in the framework of anthropology(!).?? To
quote Schlatter once again: “All theological labor submits to the same
rule that all other scientific work must obey, and obeys willingly. It does
this, if it truly has its object in God and only in God, precisely as it
remains anthropocentric, because its standpoint is not beyond but in
man.”3!3
As we saw, Beck and Schlatter differ in the way that Beck sharply
separates theological work from other science, views the knowledge of
God and his Word as possible only through the pneuma (Spirit), and
thereby arouses the suspicion that he fragments unified processes of
knowledge. Schlatter, on the other hand, views all of this as false. They
also differ in the way they regard history. Beck treated the Bible most of
all as revelation of normative doctrine and kept his distance from his-
torical research. But Schlatter arrived at the content of biblical state-
ments primarily through his historical investigation. True, both agree
that history “has its unity in Christ.”?'* But Beck would have greeted with
reservation, if at all, Schlatter’s disputing of “an antithesis between his-
tory and the work of the Spirit” and Schlatter’s insistence that “Correct
pneumatology and correct historiography [are] two sides of the same
 REVELATION AND METHOD @ 355

coin.”*'5 We discover, then, the sharpest hermeneutical difference

between Beck and Schlatter in their views of the Spirit and of history.
There is much to be learned from Schlatter still today. His affir-
mation of the inspiration of all of Scripture, Scripture’s unity, its exclu-
sive authority, its infallibility as regards its divinely intended purpose,
its perspicuity, and the rejection of a canon within a canon?!*—all this
preserves essential basic hermeneutical principles of precritical
Reformation interpretation of Scripture. Schlatter’s position is, further,
miles removed from “moderate criticism” (see “So-called Moderate
Criticism” below), which would so gladly lay claim to Schlatter as its
forerunner. In addition, Schlatter’s positive assessment of history over-
came a decided deficiency in Beck’s hermeneutic.
Why not, then, simply revive Schlatter’s position? If one compares
it with biblical revelation, at least three considerations give us pause.
First, the New Testament binds knowledge of God and his revelation not
to Romans 1 (knowledge of God through nature) but to discipleship
(knowledge of God through following Christ; cf. Mt 13:11f.; Jn 6:69;
1Co 2:6ff.; 2Co 3:14). Schlatter has moved too close to an illegitimate
“natural theology” when he in principle grants to every person the pos-
sibility of “perceiving” God and his revelation. If Beck perhaps over-
stressed the role of the Spirit, Schlatter rather underemphasized it.
Where do theological differences stem from, anyway? Is it merely a mat-
ter of the “eye”? The battle between the institutional critical enterprise
and Reformation-biblical interpretation of Scripture can in any case not
be fought out only in the area of “observation,” “the act of seeing,’ and
“Jistening:’ Second, Schlatter’s position occasionally implies criticism
of Scripture. He regarded the pietistic trust in Scripture as at times too
“servile’?” and allowed for false statements in the Bible. It is well known
that he rejected 2 Peter as inauthentic and accepted that miracles could
have been “embellished” by the early church.** It remains unclear
where such critical results, where such “dislocations and obscurations”
can rightly be detected in the biblical tradition*'°—and where not. Since
Schlatter tended to carry on hermeneutical interaction only implicitly
356 e@ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

and not with open naming of friend and foe, both critics and Pietists
gained the impression that they were justified in claiming him for their
camp. Third, Schlatter’s anthropological starting point has an incrimi-
nating effect. True, for Schlatter man never assumes highest rank. Like
few others, Schlatter kept God’s glory at the center of all he did. Man
never assumes first place, not even in research and knowledge. For the
“fact” of the living and life-giving God precedes every act of knowing.
Our knowledge is indeed characterized precisely by the fact that it is
fundamentally a receptive act. But Schlatter’s decision to start theolog-
ically with man creates a dilemma. For in practical terms it is man as
believer with whom he must start. Only the believer evinces the “con-
sciousness” that Schlatter stakes out as the theological thinker’s “sphere
of labor’*”° Schlatter’s approach makes it difficult for the unbeliever to
enter the discussion, and at the same time Christian apologetics become
problematic. Further, in the course of theological work it is by no means
so easy to accord primacy to revelation, especially when it seems for-
eign to us, when the starting point is anthropological in nature.
Two specific examples are instructive here. First, on the opening
page of Schlatter’s dogmatics he formulates the leading question of
“where and how we experience the processes that become the revelation
of God to us.” He also sets forth the dogmatic proof, the proof of God,
as “consisting in this: that we indicate the events through which our con-
sciousness of God arises and receives its content.’?'! Such dogmatic
proof, however, cannot be sustained without a prior knowledge of reve-
lation and without having already integrated revelation into human con-
sciousness. Otherwise—and this is just what Schlatter wishes to
prevent—our consciousness of God becomes a filter that either affirms
or denies given statements of Scripture. Second, the anthropological
starting point, in which consciousness of God plays an eminent role,
becomes questionable at the key point of testing for all hermeneutical
concepts: eschatology. Here Schlatter openly acknowledges the diffi-
culties of his outlook: “Methodological considerations could make it
seem advisable to end a theology before treating eschatology” (in
 REVELATION AND METHOD @ 357

Schlatter’s dogmatics eschatology is the final section). Why?

“Observation fails us when it comes to those thoughts that draw their
content from our future hope.” But Schlatter could have gone farther;
in fact, neither the doctrine of first things (protology) nor the doctrine
of last things (eschatology) nor even prophecy can be derived from
human consciousness. They are from the outset inaccessible to the “act
of seeing,” “perception,” “observation,” and like functions that play a
similar role for Schlatter. They can no longer be justified anthropocen-
trically but only theocentrically. Schlatter’s eschatology is weaker than
| any other part of his theology. Beck’s eschatology was stronger. Given
his theocentric starting point, Beck did not have the problems here that
Schlatter had.
Much argues in favor of affirming and learning from the many
positive aspects of Schlatter’s approach and findings. But the above
reflections on Schlatter’s epistemology, criticism, and anthropocentric-
ity compel us to avoid simply making his hermeneutical position our
own.

J.C. K. VON HOFMANN

Another commendable example of noncritical Scripture interpretation

is the hermeneutics of the so-called Erlangen school, especially that of
Hofmann.
Johann Christian Konrad von Hofmann (1810-77), the head of the
so-called Erlangen school, belonged to the prophetic-salvation histori-
cal direction of nineteenth-century theology.**? He had a strong
hermeneutical interest that comes to light, e.g., in his 1863 essay on “Die
Aufgabe der biblischen Hermeneutik” (“The Task of Biblical
Hermeneutics”) and in his book Biblische Hermeneutik (1880).
The decisive starting point for Hofmann is the Christian self-con-
sciousness.°%5 “I, the Christian, am for me, the theologian, the most fun-
damental subject of my science:”6 But whoever approaches the Bible as
a Christian brings his own dogmatic presuppositions with him anyway.
358 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

Hofmann by no means denies this. He calls attention to the fact that

everyone—Christian or not, adherent to this or to that particular branch
of the faith—inherently possesses dogmatic presuppositions. There is no
presuppositionless exegesis.*” The only question is which presupposi-
tions are the most appropriate when it come to the Bible. And there
Hofmann calls for “trust” in its message. Interpretation must begin
“with trust, not with doubt and criticism.’ It is as if Hofmann glimpsed
in advance the next 125 years of theological and hermeneutical devel-
opments. Trust is a positive regard for Scripture in the whole of one’s life.
Is that not a burden, an encumbrance, a hindrance for the interpreter? By
no means, answered Hofmann. On the contrary, the person who is
allegedly unpartisan is actually indifferent and is not suited for the inter-
pretive task.*? Thus Hofmann arrives at a firm affirmation of a theolo-
gia regenitorum (theology of regeneration).*°° Now an additional result
of Christian consciousness is that Scripture presents “a different object”
than the one seen by “the profane researcher.’ Hofmann therefore rejects
Semler’s procedure of handling the Bible just like any other book.**!
In the following areas Hofmann takes up essential elements of
reformational-precritical interpretation and continues them into his own
day: in his stress on trust, emphasis on theologia regenitorum (theology
of regeneration), affirmation of inspiration, acknowledgment of genuine
predictive prophecy, conception of the Bible as an object sui generis
along with his salvation-historical interest,**? and his unified view of
both testaments. Moreover, with his Verheissung und Erfiillung
(Prophecy and Fulfilment [2 vols., 1841, 1844]) he succeeded in renew-
ing widespread interest in a salvation-historical conception. He also took
up, to an extent, the modern demand for historical explanation.
Yet a foundational objection remains. It is not unjustified that J.
Wach termed Hofmann the “great advocate of Schleiermacher’s theol-
ogy of religious experience.’ In Hofmann what we really find is a the-
ology of experience in one of its most impressive forms. But there can
be no doubt that the apostles did not take their self-consciousness as
their starting point; they rather took Jesus’ words (Jn 6:68f.) and the
 REVELATION AND METHOD @ 359

Word of Holy Scripture. The resurrected Jesus himself opened up the

Scripture to them (Lk 24:27ff.)—he did not confer spiritual experiences
upon them. Even the Holy Spirit himself brings about understanding of
Scripture and of Jesus’ words (Ac 2:16ff.; Jn 14:26; 16:13f.; 2:22; 18:9,
32). The apostles were, then, theologians of revelation and not theolo-
gians of experience. This, combined with the tragic history of
mankind—even pious mankind—when he makes himself his own start-
ing point, forbids us to take up Hofmann’s position. We need a starting
point in revelation itself.

PNEUMATIC EXEGESIS

In a way pneumatic exegesis too, as it has existed since Girgensohn’s

proposals, belongs among the examples of noncritical Scripture inter-
pretation. From “Key Questions of Pneumatic Exegesis” above, it is evi-
dent that we cannot locate our standpoint in the sphere of pneumatic
exegesis. Yet it will be worthwhile to summarize again the major rele-
vant considerations at this juncture.
“Pneumatic exegesis” is to be affirmed as far as its intention to
renew church-centered and reformational interpretation in contradis-
tinction to the abortive development of critical interpretation. We also
agree that the spiritual condition of the interpreter is of great impor-
tance. A third similarity we have with pneumatic exegesis 1s the refusal
simply to identify “historical investigation of the Bible” with “scien-
tific” exegesis. Finally, along with pneumatic exegesis we emphasize that
we must win back a suitable doctrine of inspiration.
Weighty considerations, however, arise against pneumatic exege-
sis as championed from Girgensohn to Frey. There is first the fact that it
never found its way out of a two-tiered dualism between the historical
and superhistorical, the critical and the pneumatic. The two levels
remain fundamentally unrelated. Disparate, even antithetical stand-
points are both found in the single person of the interpreter, who is at
once both enlightened critic and pneumatic hearer. A perhaps even more
360 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

dangerous consequence is the threat of the “spiritual” message being

separated from the written word of the Bible. But the greater the rift
between historical, critical exegesis and spiritual exegesis that recog-
nizes the authority of the Bible, the more easily this rift becomes haven
for a pious, “pneumatic” subjectivism which does not admit of correc-
tion and which also can no longer make itself understandable. A final
consequence might be that the theology of revelation that was actually
being striven for reverts into a pneumatic-esoteric theology of experi-
ence. But that would be to fail at two points: deleterious “historical”
thinking as it has arisen through the cultural dislocations of modern cen-
turies would not be overcome; and—even more seriously—trevelation
would not receive its due. We cannot follow an exegetical method that
does not have the strength to stand its ground as a theology of revela-
tion on the field of history. The greatest weakness of pneumatic exege-
sis lies in its failure to acknowledge the indispensable priority of divine
revelation over all experience, including pneumatic.

SCHOLARLY FUNDAMENTALISM

Scholarly fundamentalism also most certainly belongs among a list of

examples of noncritical Scripture interpretation.
It is essential that we seriously investigate the interpretive possi-
bility that this approach offers. In continental Europe, however, there are
many who disagree.
Difficulties already arise with the term. As W. Joest in his article
“Fundamentalismus” in TRE puts it, the term fundamentalism is “often
used somewhat vaguely in German ecclesiastical and theological par-
lance . . . to characterize religiosity that is strictly conservative, Bible-
oriented, and influenced by the Pietist tradition.”3** Joest himself warns
against “a vague extension [of the term] that makes ‘fundamentalistic’
more or less identical with ‘evangelical’ or even ‘pietistic’ 35 Such an
extension is ruled out from the outset by the single observation that fun-
damentalism is “not an organizationally unified, defined group’”°
 REVELATION AND METHOD e 361

Difficulties continue due to the common polemic against funda-

mentalism that prevails in this country (Germany). Gordon J. Wenham
(1989), though writing from England, vividly describes the situation:

Isuspect that if either you [a student] or your lec-

turers discover during your study that you are a
Sabellian montanist or semipelagian gnostic, it will
not cause over-much excitement. Such deviants are
commonplace today and in this pluralistic society
are usually accepted without much fuss. However
should you be diagnosed as a fundamentalist your
fate may be very different. In the modern theology
faculty fundamentalism is the great heresy. It is
regarded as nearly as dangerous as the HIV virus
and is treated with similar fervour but with rather
less tact and sympathy. Fundamentalists will find
themselves denounced in lectures and tutorials, and
doubtless will be encouraged to read James Barr’s
book on the subject.*”

How supercilious I. Lénning was when he described J. I. Packer

as “‘pathetic’’!*** Polemic is a notorious hindrance to discussion and seri-
ous interaction. So chances are slim that Joest’s warnings will be heeded
or that appropriate means of communication will be established. The
same problems are illustrated, for that matter, in long-standing difficul-
ties that have become commonplace in interreligious dialogue.*”
It is necessary to keep its history firmly in mind if one hopes to
arrive at an understanding of the term fundamentalism. Beginning in
1909 in the United States, a total of twelve volumes entitled The
Fundamentals appeared. Theologians like G. Campbell Morgan, H. C.
G. Moule, James Orr, A. T. Pierson, R. A. Torrey, and B. B. Warfield
were among the contributors. They were involved in a deeply concerned
effort to prevent the spread of historical-critical research, as pursued
362 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

most of all in Europe, to North American theology and North American

theological training centers. Thus themes like the inspiration and
authority of Scripture, miracles, redemptive facts, eschatology, prayer,
and evangelization occupied center stage.**° Not until 1920 was the term
fundamentalist coined, and that was in the Baptist periodical Watchman-
Examiner, which referred to “those who mean to do battle royal for the
fundamentals.”™!
Four observations arise from the history of the use of the term.
First, the fundamentalist movement, even if it found strong support
among laypersons and in revivalist circles, was from the very beginning
a scholarly movement. Second, it is typical of the history of theology in
America and indeed partially even of the intellectual interchange
between North America and Europe. Third, it was an act of defense and
therefore possessed a basically defensive character. Fourth, it worked
mainly on systematic-theological premises and therefore inclined
toward deductive procedure.
Today, if one wishes to speak in a suitable manner of scholarly fun-
damentalism, it is best to think in terms of a broad theological current
that in some way harks back to those fundamentals, and that still today
emphasizes the inspiration of all of Scripture (“plenary inspiration”) and
Scripture’s inerrancy. One or more of the basic features cited in the pre-
vious paragraph come into play as explanatory of its origin and nature.
In this way one may work with a suitable and practical term.
Within the broad framework of this scholarly fundamentalism we
encounter a pronounced link with the Reformation. Perhaps it could even
be said that here we find the most persistent surviving example of refor-
mational-precritical Scripture interpretation. To cite W. Joest once more:
the hermeneutic of fundamentalism “was once a self-evident component
of even Catholic doctrinal tradition and then most of all of old Protestant
theology, Lutheran and Reformed alike’’*4? Fundamentalism’s
hermeneutic “in its basic features” involves “upholding Reformation tra-
dition in its old Protestant or Protestant Scholastic form?3*
Fundamentalists also continually appeal to Jesus, the apostles, and the
 REVELATION AND METHOD @ 363

ancient church as sources of correct knowledge which they wish to

preserve.**
From this posture there follows first the doctrine that the Bible is
inspired, literally and in its entirety. J. Gresham Machen, one of the lead-
ing champions of fundamentalism,°* put it this way: “It is necessary to
add to the Christian doctrine of revelation the Christian doctrine of
inspiration.’ Again and again we run up against terms like “plenary
inspiration,” “divine inspiration,;”*** “wholly and verbally God-
given,’ and more rarely “verbal inspiration.’
In all this the human side of Scripture is indeed recognized, even
made into a theme. Machen repudiates those “who do ignore the human
characteristics of the Biblical writers.”>' In this connection fundamen-
talism variously rejects a mechanistic doctrine of inspiration. Machen
protested, e.g, against the “misrepresentation” that a concept of com-
prehensive biblical inspiration “involved a mechanical theory.” Indeed,
precisely in the area of the doctrine of inspiration we arrive at the con-
cept of a “concursus,’” in which God and man are conceived as actual
participants in the event of inspiration. As we understand it, Benjamin
Breckinridge Warfield set forth this concept as early as 1894 in his essay
“The Divine and Human in the Bible.” A result of this concursus is that
the Bible is “a divine-human book in which every word is at once divine
and human... so that the Scriptures are the joint product of divine and
human activities’”%? J. I. Packer (1958) and I. H. Marshall (1982) have
again taken up this notion of a “concursive action.” They understand it
as involving complementarity. Thus one and the same event can be
traced back to the working of God’s Spirit and at the same time to the
working of human factors. It can be explained purely in terms of human
considerations or also in the sense of the classic doctrine of
inspiration.**
Obviously, in describing such concepts we must at the same time
register a certain shift within fundamentalism. The older fundamental-
ism placed the accent—despite attention to the human side of inspira-
tion—clearly on the divine activity. Newer fundamentalism leaves more
364 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

room for human participation—evidently under pressure from histori-

cal investigation. In view of this shift alone, facile talk of “fundamen-
talism” as a monolith is scientifically negligent.
From the doctrine of inspiration follows the idea of the inerrancy
of Scripture. Because the Holy Spirit led the human authors of the Bible,
they were kept from error. God’s Spirit, who is God himself, can, after
all, not lie. Thus Machen says, “The God whom Christianity worships
is a God of truth?”*> And N. Geisler states that the Bible in keeping with
its own claim “is absolutely true since it is given by the Holy Spirit from
the mouth of God, who cannot lie’”** Similarly, the opening section of
the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy begins with the words
“God, who is Himself Truth and speaks truth only, has inspired Holy
Scripture . . . .” etc. Against the diverse historical-critical voices who
charge the Bible with contradictions, errors, and mistakes, large seg-
ments of fundamentalism come together around the affirmation of
Scripture’s “inerrancy.” This inerrancy is in principle extended to the
entire Scripture.*** But not all go as far as N. Geisler in saying that “The
Bible is as perfect as God is.”*°° Overall it should not be overlooked that
some arguments follow the line that because God gave the Bible, and
because God does not lie, the Bibie is free of error. Here a strong incli-
nation toward deductive-rational reasoning is evident.
If one examines these statements from the standpoint of historical
theology, it is first undeniable that even the doctrine of inerrancy is
firmly rooted in the Reformation. According to F. Kropatscheck, even
medieval Scholasticism was convinced “of the absolute infallibility of
the Bible,’”® In contradistinction to the Socinians, who viewed the Bible
as fallible and erroneous, the representatives of Protestant Scholasticism
likewise insisted on the inerrancy of Scripture. Colovius, e.g., stated cat-
egorically: “Nullus error . . . nedum mendacium ullum locum habere
potest in universa Scriptura S” (“‘No uncertainty . .. much less falsehood
can have any place in the whole of sacred Scripture’’).**' Hiilsemann
(“extra omne erroris periculum’” [“beyond all danger of error’]), Baier,
or Konig (“Quidquid scriptura sacra docet, divinitus inspiratum adeoque
 REVELATION AND METHOD ® 365

infallibiter verum est” [“Having been divinely and infallibly inspired,

whatever sacred Scripture teaches is true”]) argued no differently.2* No
less clearly since the time of Flacius*® we find traces of thinking marked
with deductive and rational features. Whoever condemns fundamental-
ism on these points, then, also condemns old Protestant doctrine.
On the other side it cannot be overlooked that developments have
taken place within fundamentalism that lead to stark differences.
Already with B. B. Warfield one can observe that terms like trustwor-
thiness or truthfulness are occasionally preferred to the term
inerrancy.*“ Subsequently there are attempts, e.g., by D. A. Carson and
B. Ramm, to emphasize an inductive procedure.** Moreover, J. I. Packer
indicates that the statement, the Bible is God’s Word, remains a matter
of faith; it is not rationally demonstrable.** Also of interest are the clar-
ifications included in the Chicago Statement of October 1978. Among
other things, article 14 states that Scripture still contains unsolved
“alleged errors and discrepancies.” This frees the interpreter from the
compulsion of having to furnish a solution for every problem. The state-
ment also affirms that confession of inerrancy is not a redemptive neces-
sity: “We deny that such confession is necessary for salvation” (art. 19).
Finally the statement takes astonishingly precise notice of the bib-
lical data. We cite here somewhat more fully from article 13: “We deny
that it is proper to evaluate Scripture according to standards of truth and
error that are alien to its usage and purpose. We further deny that
inerrancy is negated by Biblical phenomena such as a lack of modern
technical precision, irregularities of grammar or spelling, observational
descriptions of nature, the reporting of falsehoods, the use of hyperbole
and round numbers . . . variant selection of material in parallel accounts,
or the use of free citations.” If we ponder these statements about “lack,”
““rregularities,” “hyperbole,” “selections,” and the like, then one can eas-
ily arrive at the conclusion that I. H. Marshall does regarding inerrancy:
“Tt needs so much qualification, even by its defenders, that it is in dan-
ger of dying the death of a thousand qualifications.” In any case it is
no longer possible to charge fundamentalism with working without his-
366 © BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

torical consciousness. In our view, there also seems to be a tendency at

work to replace the term inerrancy with entire trustworthiness or an
equivalent.**
We have dwelt at some length on the two points of inspiration and
inerrancy because they comprise the hermeneutical cornerstones of
scholarly fundamentalism. Now we must also note that other funda-
mental convictions of Protestant orthodoxy are no less present. Among
these is the view that the entire Bible is God’s Word.” A “canon in the
canon” approach is unthinkable here. We also find emphasis on the unity
of Scripture. Occasionally there is even talk of Scripture as an “organ-
ism.” Together with the concept of ongoing or “progressive’’*” revela-
tion, this amounts to continuation of the interpretive model of
reformational Scripture interpretation. Such a salvation-historical inter-
pretation rules out the possibility of placing everything in the Bible on
just the same level. In addition, fundamentalism is aware that the Bible
has a “center” and a “heart.”
All of this is bound up with an unambiguous yes to historical
investigation of the Bible. It defies understanding how W. Joest could
come to the conclusion that in fundamentalism the biblical canon is
“cordoned off from the marks of human authorship that arise through
historical connections and that are conditioned by individual distinctives
and limitation” (TRE, p. 735). Machen, e.g., is just as loathe as the
Protestant Scholastics to “deny the individuality of the Biblical writers.”
Indeed, he emphasizes that careful attention to “the historical situations
which gave rise to the Biblical books” is essential. For “Christianity
depends . . . upon the narration of an event:’*> The Chicago Statement
focuses attention on “the various personalities and literary styles of the
writers” and on the “literary forms and peculiarities” of the text.**
However: historical investigation of the Bible may not convict the Bible
of untruth. As in Luther and Bengel the predominance of the Bible over
history, or over currently ascendent historical opinion, remains firmly in
place. ,
If then essential basic features of the Reformation’s understanding
 REVELATION AND METHOD e@ 367

of Scripture remain preserved in fundamentalism, and if claims that the

Scripture makes about itself are variously taken up—why not adopt this
form of Scripture interpretation? Certainly we can gratefully affirm
much that we find here. Certainly there also exists a tight connection
between a “fundamentalist” and a—as we say in Germany—“pietistic”
hermeneutic. In no case will we be able to agree with those who dismiss
something merely because it is “fundamentalistic.”
Yet there are four reasons why we cannot join in with the under-
standing of Scripture of scholarly fundamentalism as sketched above.
There is first of all the simple fact that we in Germany have a dif-
ferent history. This diverse historical origin alone rules out wholesale
adoption of fundamentalism’s hermeneutic. J.G. Hamann once read the
history of Cain and Abel as his “own life story:’ He thereby created the
possibility of identification with the narrative. As German Pietists,
however, we do not read our “own life story” in fundamentalism. Thus
an identification is not possible. Fundamentalism has its own unmis-
takably distinct character from the point of view of church history and
cultural history as well as in terms of historical theology and the history
of piety from which it arose.
Moreover, a defensive character continues to attach to fundamen-
talism. The catchword “inerrancy” is nothing but a defensive word
answering to the challenge that the Bible is errant. Because of this defen-
sive character the defender of inerrancy is constantly required to assume
the burden of proof. He must at least show that the Bible is not neces-
sarily in error. He can fall prey to suspicion that he is inhibited. But even
apart from individual terms like inerrancy, a biblical hermeneutic can
never center on mounting a defensive; it must rather center on the offen-
sive encounter of God and man through enscripturated revelation.
Third, it must be said that fundamentalism, like Protestant
Scholasticism, bears strong deductive features. Precisely because it is
concerned with the defense of God’s revelation, it builds its conception
of the Bible almost imperceptibly from its image of God. But the ques-
tion must be raised whether an inductive procedure, a hermeneutic of
368 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

encounter, would not be more appropriate to the essence of revelation

as a mediation of the encounter between God and man. Doctrina (doc-
trine) is the result of communicatio (communication) and not vice
versa. From that point of view historical investigation of the Bible could
be integrated into a comprehensive biblical hermeneutic more organi-
cally than occurs in fundamentalism.
The fourth reason is closely related to the third. In fundamental-
ism arguments often run more along logical-rational instead of biblical-
exegetical lines. That can be shown by an example related to inerrancy.
C. F. H. Henry, who has written one of the most impressive works on
God and revelation, does not fail to notice that inerrancy is not a bibli-
cal term and that it is taught only indirectly in the Bible (“implicitly
taught’). But, he continues, “inerrancy . . . is logically deducible’’” At
such a decisive juncture, however, biblical language and conceptuality
would be preferable to a logical-rational argument.
In sum we must carefully factor scholarly fundamentalism into our
deliberations. Yet the challenge to arrive at our own hermeneutical
approach remains.

SO-CALLED MODERATE CRITICISM

By virtue of its name, at least, so-called moderate criticism with its

“post-critical Scripture interpretation” deserves to be included in our
deliberations.**° R. Smend spoke, e.g., of a “positive criticism” and
pleaded with K. Barth (KD IV, 2, p. 542) for a “tested, critical naivete.”
The task is to break through to this “second naivete,” to a “‘post-critical
posture,””3*!
In the approximately twenty years since Smend’s essay, moderate
criticism has made repeated calls for a revision of radical criticism and
sought a new hermeneutical position.** It sees its task in light of the fact
that historical-critical work “is today being probingly questioned more
than ever before.” It wishes to remain “critical over against its [histori-
cal criticism’s] own solutions and open to new ways of placing ques-
 REVELATION AND METHOD @ 369

tions.”* And it is not difficult to tally up examples of such openness.

Thus, e.g., H. M. Barth has recently attempted to make positive use of
E. Drewermann’s depth-psychological interpretation of the Bible.°*
Many voices counsel us to adopt the hermeneutical decisions of mod-
erate criticism as these have thus far taken shape.
Shouldn’t this be possible? We find here, indeed, an acute con-
sciousness of the deficiencies of classical historical criticism. As H. M.
Barth declared in his recent essay (1988): “Christendom’s dealings with
the Bible are mired in crisis’’; “Historical criticism is unable to furnish
a remedy here’’*> The realization grows that “Holy Scripture is to be
interpreted in just the same Spirit by which it was authored.”** That is,
the interpreter requires the Holy Spirit. It is also being recognized that
we need to rediscover texts like 1 Corinthians 1:18-2:16." Biblical
inspiration must be rescued from the disrepute in which it has lan-
guished and once again made fruitful.*** Further, “the necessity of
expansive, spiritual-theological interpretation of Scripture” is being
proposed “over against a restrictive, purely historically-critically argued
exegesis.”>*° For Christians the Gospel becomes a given “by which and
on the basis of which they must orient themselves.” The faith of the
exegete, a positive practical orientation toward Scripture, and discussion
with the Christian community as well as between exegetes and dog-
maticians are being recognized as helpful and attainable.**' Repeatedly,
the concern is expressed to continue Reformation interpretation of
Scripture, albeit with the modifications that the history of theology
requires.°°?
Moderate criticism’s hermeneutical attempt is to an extent sharply
attacked by radical critics.*? In an obstinate move to repristinate dead
slogans they trudge along the path blazed decades ago by Ebeling,
repeating his insistence that historical criticism serves the faith by oblit-
erating its historical supports.** To this may be added the peculiar
founding of historical criticism on the first article of the Apostles’
Creed: “I believe in God the Father Almighty. . . ?’ In this view God, in
370 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

whom the creed affirms faith, has “forced” us to a historical-critical

understanding of the Bible through the event of the Enlightenment.*”
It is not our task here to refute positions that are obviously out-
dated. Far more pressing is critical interaction with the hermeneutical
proposals of moderate criticism.
First, the question arises whether a movement so deeply stamped
by history as historical criticism can really be overcome by a “moder-
ate” revision. If it is true that “historical-critical theology” is “a singu-
lar phenomenon from the historical-theological and church-historical
viewpoint”;°® if it is true that it displayed a “tremendous intellectual-
and church-historical effect’;?” if it is true that since Kant we are deal-
ing with the “fundamental integration of revelation into reason’**—
then little can be expected to come of any “moderate” modifying
measures. And if, in addition, O. Merk is correct with his thesis,
“Hermeneutics is the mother of New Testament science in the 18th cen-
tury; °°? then a fundamentally new conception of hermeneutics is all the
more advisable.
On the other hand it strikes one as odd when H. M. Barth first
states, “Historical criticism is unable to furnish a remedy here,” yet in
conclusion writes, “Historical criticism in its classic form will. . .
remain obligatory.” P. Stuhlmacher strikes us the same way. At the end
of his essay on the hermeneutical guidance given by 1 Corinthians
2:6—16 he surprisingly declares: “Historical criticism retains validity
because and insofar as it is the best means to open up the original sense
of the biblical witness to Scripture” (p. 156). How is that any different
from G. Strecker, a radical critic, who maintains that historical criticism
confers “on the text what belongs to the text’! And when even
Stuhlmacher sets forth the thesis that “critical historical work on the
Holy Scripture” is “absolutely essential}? indeed that “theological
thinking” must “be and remain content-critical [sachkritisches] think-
ing,”*? how is he to be distinguished in this connection from C. Hartlich,
who tells us: “the historical-critical method is the only one possible”?
Along with the basic question whether modifications and revisions
 REVELATION AND METHOD @ 371

suffice to overcome a false fundamental starting point, other questions

arise. As we saw, the inspiration of Scripture is being pondered anew in
moderate criticism. Evidently this amounts to a break with radical crit-
icism, which to this day disputes that the biblical writers possessed a
“higher capacity of.knowing.”°> Moderate criticism, however, does not
go beyond personal inspiration (see chap. 7 above). That is, it speaks of
the “empowering” of the biblical authors to be God’s witnesses.* But
the content of biblical statements remains quite decidedly subordinate
to content criticism (Sachkritik).*” We find, then, a peculiar combina-
tion of spiritual understanding of Scripture and content-critical science,
of elect witnesses of God and fallible biblical writers who stand to gain
by instruction from modern knowledge and who in fact require correc-
tion. Once more we are overcome by the suspicion that no convincing
answer to the hermeneutical challenge is forthcoming from this kind of
mediating and eclectic theology.
Another question remains: wherein does such a doctrine of per-
sonal inspiration differ, e.g., from J. Blank, who demands that the con-
cept of inspiration must “today be modified and rethought” so that it
conforms “‘to the historical and material diversity of the New Testament
texts.”4°8 That, however, simply means that modern criticism draws the
permissible parameters for the concept of inspiration. Or again: how is
moderate criticism different from the social-historical interpretation of
L. Schottroff, who derives the Pauline idea of human sinfulness from the
“experiences of powerlessness of the Roman empire’s little people”?
Paul shows up here as a witness to Schottroff’s theory, indeed as the star
witness. But he must be roundly corrected. If his chosen status extends
only to his own person, if he is only “personally” inspired, and if this
inspiration does not at the same time extend to his message, then such
personal inspiration is little help against “modern” corrections.
With that we run up against the subsequent question of what
“authority” such “correction” should assume. Even if we think that Paul
himself summons us to content criticism of the Bible,*'® we must still
furnish an answer to the question: which of the conflicting statements
372 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

found in the Bible are justified? Since the Enlightenment the answer has
been clear: it is reason that makes the decision here. Already in 1906
Reinhard spoke of a plurality of “authorities of truth” that arise after the
Enlightenment.‘'' Here we must consider that other entities, too, and not
just reason, are cited, among them “experiential connection,” coherence
and analogy,‘ scientific character, the avoidance of sacrificium intel-
lectus (sacrifice of intellect),*'? the new understanding of reality, the cur-
rent consciousness of truth,*'* and “liberating praxis.’ In any case
Scripture is no longer the sole normative authority here. Since the
Enlightenment we are rather dealing in principle with two authorities:
reason and revelation.‘ Occasionally there are variations. Thus R.
Rothe’s (1799-1867) two authorities are called “piety” and
“Scripture?”*” But overall it holds true that the Bible is no longer “the—
exclusive—source of knowledge of Christian truth’’*'* Unfortunately,
“moderate criticism” has yet to find its way out of such two-authority
thinking. Because and insofar as it exercises content criticism, it cannot
dispense with a second authority alongside of Scripture.
It is clear that where content criticism is regarded as necessary, the
unity of Scripture is lost. True, in moderate criticism there is no longer
that “dismembered use of the Word of God” that Beck once lamented.*"
But that fact remains that moderate criticism, too, speaks of the contra-
dictoriness of the Bible*” and in principle denies its unity.*?!
Who says, however, that contradictions are purely “rationally”
determined, explained, settled? From the Enlightenment onward, for
many years it was believed that ratio (reason), and indeed a ratio with
high moral qualities, was key here. Today we have shed this moralistic
superstition. We are discovering that the separation of Scripture from
revelation, the separation of the acceptable from the nonacceptable in
the Bible, can itself give rise to an authority of a different description:
to opinion or feeling, to sentiment that is not always rational. At this
point we can envision sermonic meditations that begin, “What I like
is .. 2’? Here the text is weighed and assessed negatively because of
contents that are allegedly culpable; next, speculation is proffered, e.g.,
 REVELATION AND METHOD @ 373

that Genesis 3 has “contributed to the denigration of woman in church

and society.’ Or by social class analysis along with personal experi-
ence one learns that participation “in an affluent industrial society” nec-
essarily generates a certain theology.’ How can moderate criticism,
caught up in affirming two authorities and the Bible’s self-contradic-
toriness, hinder the burgeoning of such a theology of experience?
With all due respect for the efforts of moderate criticism, a seven-
layered wall separates us from its hermeneutical position as currently
articulated. First, there is their basic refusal to give up the dogma of his-
torical criticism. As a mediating theology it contents itself with revi-
sions—even if these are sometimes striking—where a fundamental new
beginning would be necessary. Second, instead of regarding Scripture
as inspired (2Ti 3:16), it does not go beyond affirmation of an inspira-
tion of the biblical writers. Third, it remains captive to the
Enlightenment in that it must posit a second authority along with
Scripture to which the interpreter is responsible. As a result it cannot
uphold the Reformation outlook of the Bible as the sole norma normans
(normative standard). Fourth, it demands content criticism of the Bible.
Without content criticism there would be no theology as science, as
moderate criticism sees it. Fifth, it gives up the unity of Scripture—in
contrast to reformational-precritical Scripture interpretation, but also in
contrast to Beck and Schlatter. Sixth, Scripture and revelation remain
different, only partly congruent entities. Therefore moderate criticism
follows the trend of seeking the real meaning of Scripture beyond
Scripture. Seventh, it tends in the direction of a theology of experience
by separating Scripture and revelation from each other and acknowl-
edging only certain dimensions of the Bible’s statements as God’s
Word.
Our own position shall therefore be worked out cognizant of mod-
erate criticism, yet constructed independently of it.
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CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Developing a Biblical-
Historical Interpretation

he most urgent hermeneutical task facing us in theology today is the

development of a biblical-historical interpretation. The final pages
of our study will be devoted to this task.

TERMINOLOGY
First, comment is in order regarding the term biblical-historical.
In previous publications I used the term historical-biblical.' That
reflected direct response to the term historical-critical. In critical inter-
action with the historical-critical method and its distinctive history, his- -
torical-biblical functioned well.
In the course of time, however, some disadvantages to our term
surfaced. E.g., occasionally the misunderstanding arose that the “his-
torical-biblical” approach sought to be just a variation of the “histori-
cal-critical”’ Further, the connotation of both “historical-critical’’ and
“thistorical-biblical” lays the accent on the historical. This feeds the mis-
conception that interpretation of the biblical texts is only a subcategory
376 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

of historical work. This gives short shrift to the theological dimension

of the Bible, i.e., to what makes it unique.
Considerations like these have moved me now to select the term
biblical-historical. It does more justice, I feel, to the distinctive nature
of the Bible, which demands no less than an interpretive approach dis-
tinctively suited to it. Yet at the same time it preserves the serious his-
torical interest that cannot be abandoned. But this brings us to a related
problem.

IMPORTANCE OF THE TERM HISTORICAL

To put it sharply: the great deficiency of this whole study could in hind-
sight prove to be that we remain too strongly attached to the “historical.”
Our generation still languishes in the grip of the “historical” way
of putting questions. The relation of European civilization to the wider
world, however, has in the meantime altered drastically. A Bible-Babel
dispute today would not begin to create the excitement that it did at the
onset of the twentieth century. Today ethical questions have supplanted
historical-cognitive ones. E.g., we are divided today by peace issues or
man’s use of the environment, not specific individual historical prob-
lems. The “new religiosity” of our time has far more to do with man’s
integration into the cosmos and with his personal and collective survival
than with “the way things used to be’”—including things religious. Not
what “used to be” but what is “real” or “right” dominates modern
concern.
Indeed, the entirety of previous history is being read with an
incriminating eye. The modern man or woman seeks to reinterpret the
entire stream of history and give it a quite different sense than it ever
had before. For the modern person, the continuation of human history
as previously understood would result only in decline and ruin.
Along with the reorientation of post-Roman European civilization,
we must note the impulse of the burgeoning church in the two-thirds
world. Its cultures feel the Western historical impetus only partially, if
 DEVELOPING A BIBLICAL-HISTORICAL INTERPRETATION @ 377

at all. To them the mystery of the faith speaks far more compellingly
than the deciphering of the historical. Dynamic and ethical under-
standing of the Bible ranks higher than the cognitive or even analytical.
It would be foolish for us as theologians to shut our eyes to these
profound changes and to continue to treat the historical as if it were obvi-
ously the most important thing.” Today it is rather concern for the his-
torical that requires justification. Are we not already outmoded, then, in
suggesting “biblical-historical interpretation”? The answer to this ques-
_ tion runs along two lines. First, insofar as the Bible comprises a docu-
ment of the history of God with man, it must be understood and
interpreted historically. Even if all mankind wished to “climb out” of
history—people who hallow the Bible could never follow suit. Second,
the term biblical-historical fairly invites other “biblical” ways of under-
standing. If, as we propose, “biblical” is made the overarching rubric,
then alongside of “biblical-historical” we may readily expect to find
“biblical-ethical,” “biblical-spiritual” or “typological,” and so on.
We remain aware, then, of the limited serviceability of the term
biblical-historical. But the nonnegotiable historical interest that must
inhere in every salvation-historical interpretation and that the Bible itself
provokes—to say nothing of the present theological situation, still
strongly affected by the historical—gives us the right to propose first of
all a biblical-historical interpretive procedure.

PROCEDURAL OPENNESS AND CONSTRAINTS

Our methodical interpretive procedure must first be an open one. This
primarily means that it is constantly subject to refinement. It must ori-
ent itself in an ongoing way with a careful eye to its object and to the
necessities of its service in the Christian community. It may never claim
the status of a dogma or a dogmatic-like position. Such dogmatic ossi-
fication is precisely the objection we have to the historical-critical mode
of thinking. We may never, then, claim that our method is the “only one
possible” or “the scientific one” or “the absolutely legitimate one” or the
378 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

like. It goes without saying that it can therefore also not serve as the
identification card of our faithfulness or even the object of our faith.
Openness of procedure, then, means the constant willingness to be
corrected. We wish to keep the thoughts in view that others have con-
templated. We desire, by a sort of ars semper reformanda (art of always
reforming), to hold open the method’s process, teachability, and further
development, most of all in relation to a constantly improving grasp of
biblical statements.
At the same time, “openness of procedure” serves notice that a
guarantee of errorless, biblically perfect results can never by any means
be provided. The polemical objection is sure to arise that a biblical man-
ner of interpretation such as we are proposing seeks to vouchsafe an
error-free exegesis. Such polemic, however, would be quite misplaced.
On the other hand, every interpretation is carried out in the frame-
work of certain restrictions. As we noted earlier, inherent in the charac-
ter of scientific activity is that it clearly states to itself and to others what
these restrictions are. They are, so to speak, positive prejudgments—and
therefore obviously prejudgments that admit of correction.
Three such restrictions may be cited in this connection. First, we
view ourselves bound by the results that we have worked out in previ-
ous chapters. Yet the interpretive event itself is always a fresh occasion
for the testing of these results. Second, in principle we maintain bind-
ing ties with other modes of interpretation. We attempt to keep before
us such matters as wherein a historical interpretation necessarily
remains descriptive rather than prescriptive, or where, e.g., a dynamic,
ethical, dogmatic, or typological understanding helpfully supplements
the historical. Third, our interpretive possibilities remain rooted in the
Christian community which interpretation is called to serve. We remind
ourselves that scientific, or in particular biblical-historical, interpreta-
tion, while possessing a distinct character, does not possess a funda-
mentally higher quality or value than the Spirit-led and Scripture-based
interpretation of other members of the church. Prayer, exchange of ideas,
discussion, correction, and praxis bind the scientific Bible interpreter
 DEVELOPING A BIBLICAL-HISTORICAL INTERPRETATION ® 379

with the overarching reality of the Christian community in which he

lives.
But with the above we have already taken the first step into the pro-
cedure itself, the exploration of which will now occupy us in the pages
ahead. ‘ ‘

THE SETTING OF A BIBLICAL-HISTORICAL

INTERPRETATION
At this point we must discuss more fully the embeddedness of the inter-
preter. What embeddedness? Embeddedness in the faith and in the
Christian community. Both have fundamental significance for interpre-
tation.* Man seldom tends to speak truth to himself. Much more typi-
cally he speaks his truth—i.e., the truth that has resulted from his own
life story to that point and which he practices. To paraphrase a prover-
bial saying, “Tell me the story of your life and III tell you how you inter-
pret.”
The way we interpret, then, begins in the history of our life. This
life history forms, first, our dynamic and ethical understandings of
Scripture. It does this before our cognitive, and then our historical,
understandings of Scripture take shape. The priority of dynamic and eth-
ical understanding often results in our talking past each other without
realizing the reason why.
An understanding that the Bible suggests to us, in light of our dis-
cussion in previous chapters, presupposes personal faith. A biblical-his-
torical interpretation consciously integrates itself, therefore, into a
theologia regenitorum (theology of regeneration). How can one apply
Bengel’s leading principle (“Apply yourself totally to the text . . ”) oth-
erwise? “Totally” signifies the opposite of reservation, of cool, critical
distance. On the other hand, being rooted in faith means that the inter-
preter is not faced with an isolated text, with some absolutized medium
of speech. He rather steadily hears the voice of the living God. The voice
that “pierces our heart” (cf. Ac 2:37), the voice that becomes our answer
380 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

to the question “What shall I do?” —this voice encounters us on the cog-
nitive and historical level. Biblical-historical questions can basically
never be separated from faith questions.
Along with embeddedness in faith we must consider embedded-
ness.in the Christian community, the fellowship of faith. True, the Bible
speaks to every age and will do so till the end of time. Yet the specific
challenges of every age serve to cast sharper light on respective specific
features of the biblical message. Such challenges are first and foremost
community challenges and not research challenges or challenges for
some pedagogical guild. Biblical-historical interpretation, therefore,
takes place consciously within the framework of the challenges that
impinge on the community. To that extent the effects that an interpreta-
tion elicits in a certain situation justly reflect back on the interpreter.
This serves as a reminder to the interpreter of his responsibility for
the community. How the community’s present mission, e.g., of winning
people to Christ, fares is of concern to him, also in his activity as inter-
preter. He is not free to stipulate his own chosen sphere of responsibil-
ity; it is given to him. It is one of the excesses of self-serving,
self-exalting reason that it dangles before the interpreter the illusion that
he lives in an open zone beyond the concerns of the community, and that
he can pursue theology “etsi congregatio sanctorum non daretur’” (“as
if the holy congregation did not exist’).
Earlier we named prayer, exchange of ideas, discussion, correction,
and praxis as forms of interfacing with the community. The heading
“prayer” is concrete reminder of the supplication that bears up and
accompanies the interpreter. Prayer is interpretive aid in a primal sense.
The heading “exchange of ideas” reminds us of the various gifts among
community members (cf. Ro 12 and 1Co 12). Only seldom will the
interpreter possess the gift of the evangelist. He does preliminary work
for the evangelist and in a manner of speaking carries on his work
through the evangelist’s ministry. On the other hand there are cases in
which, e.g., the interpreter is dependent on those who pray over him for
healing (Jas 5:13ff.). “Discussion” reminds us, e.g., of the necessity of
 DEVELOPING A BIBLICAL-HISTORICAL INTERPRETATION @ 381

using understandable language. The paucity of discussion between

theologians and nontheologians in recent times is closely related to
theologians’ failure to strive for lucidity—indeed, they sometimes seem
to fear that understandable language is tantamount to superficiality. But
how can thefe be cofrection when there first has to be a linguistic mir-
acle to bring about understanding?
“Correction” brings us to an especially delicate issue. To deflect
misunderstanding let it be said at the outset that the ideal here cannot
lie in a compromise between “university theology” and “practical
Christian piety:’ Nor is it to be sought through tallying opinions and
computing the average. It is not a matter of “getting along well together,’
of arriving at a “most conservative possible theology,’ or the like. We
speak here rather of a genuine, indeed even equal participation of
church members regarding a common understanding of Scripture. This
calls on theologians to concede that the Holy Spirit is active in places
other than the scholar’s study and the history of theology. We may cite
two examples here. According to Wilfried Joest, God himself has made
it clear to us through the history of theology since the Enlightenment
that the Bible is error-prone.* He forgets that during the same era the
same Holy Spirit made clear to the church that modern theology was
heading up a box canyon. Another example involves James Barr. He
advocates the thesis that the decisive criterion for interpretation lies nei-
ther in the Bible nor in the teaching of the church but rather in
“research.”> This thesis enthrones a papacy of experts and excludes the
correction of the church. But what is correction? It cannot replace per-
sonal conscience and hard-earned knowledge gained over many years.
Yet it constantly reminds the interpreter of his membership in the body
of Christ and of his—at best—fragmentary knowledge (cf. 1Co 13:9).
Further, correction makes him grateful for the gifts of others. It thus pre-
pares the way for modesty and agreement on a common interpretation
of Scripture.
We also spoke of “praxis.” Let us try to express what that means
concretely. Every church member is expected to take up some task in the
382 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

fellowship in addition to his or her work outside the church. Analogous

to this, every interpreter should take up an additional task in the church
along with his work of interpretation. Among the many possibilities we
may list visiting the sick, attending Christian meetings and small-group
get-togethers, supply preaching, and missionary trips. In general J. T.
Beck’s counsel applies: practice what you know in order to advance in
knowledge.’ In this way the interpreter is most likely to avert the neme-
sis that Franz Mussner called “Privatgnosis” (“private specialized
knowledge’’).’
We have now sketched the general features of the setting of a bib-
lical-historical interpretation. It has its prehistory in the earlier faith- and
life-story of the interpreter. It is embedded in the Christian community.
Together with other church members it seeks biblical answers to the
challenges of the day. It hears in Scripture the voice of the living God.
Now let us look at a concrete example of how the event of inter-
pretation gets underway.
The interpreter approaches his text in continuity with his ongoing
life history. This history is not only background, not just a foil, but a real
presupposition for the step that places him before the text. He does not
do this in as nonparticipatory a mood as possible or in as distanced a
fashion as he can; he rather affirms fundamental trust that previous
encounter with the voice of the living God through his Word has infused
him. He does this in prayer. The goal of his prayer is to work filled with
the same Holy Spirit by which the authors of the Bible labored. He
knows that his prayer—here one thinks of Luther’s oratio (prayer)!—
does not preserve him from error. But at the same time he knows that
he can, despite his failures, serve the church to which he is called as
interpreter. He knows that his prayer is determinative for the connection
of his life with God—the God who also in this, perhaps unusual, text
speaks with him. And he knows that this life connection is decisive for
his interpretation and for any fruit that it might, bear.
He also comes to the text realizing that here, quite possibly, a bat-
tle awaits. This can be a battle between God and man—him, the inter-
 DEVELOPING A BIBLICAL-HISTORICAL INTERPRETATION @ 383

preter. He is aware of his inherent determination to modulate and alter

God’s Word according to his own ideas. He knows the limits of his own
willingness to see this or that feature of the text. He recognizes the dis-
parity between his praxis and how God has charged him to live. In all
of this he lives out ‘the tentatio (struggle) of which Luther likewise
spoke. He also knows that that battle may hinder as well as further his
understanding. What could await, however, is also a battle with the Evil
One. Tentatio can become an hour when the Tempter does his work. The
_ interpreter’s errors can lose their harmlessness and lead to deception. Or
he may be tormented by the prospect of succumbing to such danger. In
any case he knows that decisions await him. Likewise, just as every
thought carries a will within it (Schlatter), an interpreter’s every thought
is itself already the consequence of certain decisions (Oepke). To that
extent every exegesis consists in an act of the will. Here we are obviously
far removed from the view of U. Wilckens, according to whom “a sci-
entifically responsible interpretation of the Bible” consists “solely” in an
investigation of the texts that comes about “through methodologically
consistent application of historical reason’ What a bloodless and
abstract conception! Such a view is, in the literal sense of the word,
“utopian” (“leads nowhere’’).
The setting of a biblical-historical interpretation is, finally, char-
acterized by an inner exchange between the interpreter and his text. Here
we encounter traces of what Luther called meditatio (reflection). Our
modern word meditation utterly fails to grasp the meaning.’ For the
essential focus here is not concentration on oneself and immersion in
oneself but rather a hearing of that which is beyond oneself.'° The inter-
preter makes his way toward the text. He implores God to open his heart
so that his limitations will be overcome. He knows that he is dealing
with an apokalupsis, a revelation, that defies and eludes all manipula-
tion (cf. Mt 16:17). He waits, we might say, on the text. Or more pre-
cisely, he waits on a sort of parousia of the text, its “arrival” in his
presence. If the text fails to “arrive,” if this “arrival” does not come
384 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

about, then he is forced to go no farther than a philological, literary, or

at best isolatedly cognitive “explanation.”
To summarize: biblical-historical interpretation begins at that
point where an interpreter approaches a text and expects its “arrival” in
continuation of his faith- and life-history and his embeddedness in the
Christian community. First and most importantly he hears in this text
the voice of the living God. He thereby enters into a tension resulting
from the fact that every interpretation in the realm of church and per-
sonal faith brings about battle and decision, on the one hand, and yet
boon to those who remain open to it, on the other. The interpreter’s basic
posture is one of expectant prayer and humble openness.

THE BIBLICAL TEXT AS STARTING POINT

The first step of our interpretation is devoted to the text. In this way we
are remaining true to the procedure of the church’s interpretation of
Scripture down through the centuries. Even historical criticism did not
break out of this traditional approach. That was a great blessing, since
in this way the biblical texts continued to receive a hearing.
Numerous considerations from previous chapters support the deci-
sion to take the text as our point of departure. If the Bible facilitates
encounter between God and man, this encounter must indeed be opened
through his Word. We receive it. From this grace, this gift of encounter,
is derived the right of these biblical texts to speak. If we wish to hear
what they say, and what they are authorized to say, then we must hear
them in their concrete form—just as we find them in the text. In this way
our revelatory starting point comes into play as well.
With the church through all the centuries, then, we ask more pre-
cisely: what do we find written there? This question leads us to the task
of determining the text. From the numerous manuscripts, translations,
and other documents, we must ascertain the oldest and most original
text, insofar as this can be determined.
Relevant specialized studies furnish orientation in the available
 DEVELOPING A BIBLICAL-HISTORICAL INTERPRETATION © 385

possibilities and technical procedures. Here we will add only a few

remarks.
First, a word about nomenclature and what it implies. Normally
one speaks of “textual criticism;’ whereas our term is determining the
text.'' “Criticism” in view of textual transmission is a thoroughly apt
word inasmuch as it connotes differentiating and evaluating discrimi-
nation. Since, however, historical criticism continually tried to rob this
word of innocence and to make “criticism” its chief argument to justify
its own existence, a certain caution is advisable in its use. We speak of
~ neither criticism of the text nor of a dogmatic-critical procedure. Ours
is rather the comprehensive concern to recover the original text to the
extent that this is possible.
A second comment relates to the matter at hand itself. Are we not,
one might ask, here granting priority, or at least equality, to critical
human reason rather than to revelation? And is this not taking place at
the decisive juncture at which revelation as such first encounters us? Is
it not then precisely critical reason, as it determines the presumably old-
est text, that dictates to us what revelation is? As plausible as a positive
answer to this question appears, to say yes here would ultimately be
unjustified. For the transmission of the biblical tradition is not charac-
terized by various messages, by different texts, that compete with each
other in their conflicting demands to be “the” revelation. We are deal-
ing rather with a single message, with variants of the same text. We
decide from among these variants and not from among independent
texts. So our decision rests on the pregiven, fundamentally preserved
substance of the text as passed along in the course of transmission. Since
its substance and parameters are already firmly in place, a decision in
individual cases where there are differences is possible. The possibility
of seriously mistaken decisions is narrowly circumscribed. To that
extent the earlier so-called Textus Receptus is basically not a different
text than the more recent textus receptus of Nestle-Aland.”
In this connection we should recall that in the work of determin-
ing the text we move virtually wholly in the realm of what we may term
386 e@ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

“receptive reason.” Reason is thoroughly capable of such reception, even

in the view of Reformation dogmatics. Parallel events would be, e.g., the
mastery and use of the biblical languages, observation of archaeologi-
cal evidences, or the transference of the biblical message into modern
speech. Here reason’s receptive and ordering capability remains intact
(cf. 1Co 14:19) despite the Fall. If we give this insight up, then we could
also no longer account for how people ever heard the preaching of Jesus,
the apostles, and the prophets, and understood them in at least an out-
ward sense. We would end with an a-rational or radically ecstatic faith
hardly to be found in either Scripture or mainstream Christian history.
It would not be theology, nevertheless, if worldview-theological
viewpoints did not make their presence felt even at the foundational
level of determining the text. Our third remark pertains to this problem.
Instructive here is the food for thought that the history of “textual crit-
icism” offers us. According to the introduction to the 1979 edition of the
Nestle-Aland Greek text of the New Testament, “the special theories of
Westcott/Hort” had a “decisive influence” on the form that the early
Nestle text assumed." The 1979 Nestle-Aland consciously freed itself
from commitment to these theories. Instead, it opted for a “local-
genealogical method,’ gave up preference for any particular text group,
and made its decisions eclectically “from case to case." In fact, a care-
ful investigation of each individual case seems to be the best means of
avoiding illegitimate biases. Similarly, one must maintain sober aware-
ness that already in the rise of textual variants, theological points of view
played a role.

OPENING UP THE TEXT

1. After determining the text, the next step is philological exege-

sis of the text. Such exegesis investigates overarching structural features
and more immediate context as well as grammatical and linguistic struc-
ture. It illuminates word meanings and literary forms (genre) and flows
naturally into a suitable translation.
 DEVELOPING A BIBLICAL-HISTORICAL INTERPRETATION @ 387

Once more it should be said that making philological exegesis pri-

mary has been common throughout church history. We recall that even
medieval exegesis took the sensus literalis (literal sense) as its starting
point. Historical criticism with its own philological concern took over
a tradition many hundreds of years old. As a result, theological science
in partnership with the more restricted field of philology has put
together outstanding technical tools and a nearly incalculable wealth of
illustrative material.
In contrast to the previous area of determining the text, we observe
that now in philological exegesis the interpreter has a far larger area of
free play for his decisions. The possibilities multiply of making theo-
logically grounded judgments. Temptations and dangers multiply as
well. We will shortly see how this area of free play for decisions
increases with every exegetical step.
In this connection two items bear special mention. First, biblical-
historical interpretation attempts to implement the principle of proxim-
ity in its philological focus. That is, it explains the words, the linguistics,
and the literary forms of the New Testament first of all with an eye to
the Old Testament and to Judaism. It does this not for traditional or arbi-
trary reasons but because it proceeds from the basis of a historical con-
nection between the new covenant and the old covenant, a connection
dealt with sufficiently in earlier chapters of this study. To cite a well-
known example: it explains the Jogos of John 1, not as the immanent
cosmic nexus to which man has universal access but as the Word God
addresses to the creature. Another example: it explains the light of John
8:12 not from gnostic-Hellenistic speculations but based on the God
who grants illumination (Ps 36:10), and who does this especially
through the medium of his Word (Ps 119:105). It is worth noting that
Kittel’s Theological Dictionary of the New Testament is constructed
with this principle of proximity in prominent view.
Second, biblical-historical interpretation at the philological level
pays heed to the possibilities and boundaries of form-critical investiga-
tion. Biblical genres and forms can give valuable clues to content and
388 e BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

purpose of biblical expressions. Thus it is improbable just on the basis

of form that Jesus wants to commend negligence in Luke 16:1ff. On the
other hand, the form-critical enterprise that found special favor most of
all in Germany is now shattered—I speak here of historical criticism’s,
and specifically form criticism’s, quest to describe the rise of the Gospel
on the basis of assumptions about forms having their origin in collec-
tive consciousness and activity. Today form criticism finds itself in a
state of upheaval. In general we may say that the rise and history of a
text cannot be explained solely through its form, and that form and his-
tory respectively are to be considered on their own terms.
2. From philological exegesis interpretation progresses to histori-
cal exegesis. This too was already practiced long ago in the days of a
Flacius or a Bengel.
Once again the interpreter’s latitude for judgment and decision
rachets upward. For here he gains additional interpretive possibilities.
He can, e.g., illuminate his text from ancient history. Contours
emerge from this. By such historical comparison e.g., Matthew 22: 15ff.
appears as a time of decision in view of the Zealots; the distinctiveness
of the Lucan prologue (Lk 1:1—4) comes into view; the peculiarities of
the trials of Jesus take shape.
Broadened possibilities of understanding result as well from com-
parative religious illumination. It its light we grasp more clearly Jesus’
striking behavior at Jacob’s well (Jn 4:5ff.), his critical interaction with
Jewish Halacha (oral tradition; cf. Mt 15:1ff.), or his dissatisfaction with
the title of Son of David (Mt 22:41ff.). The history behind the rise of
the New Testament epistles helps us, not just to write early-church his-
tory, but also to understand the queries and responses that abound in
them.
In addition there is the expansive area of tradition history. Leading
images, motives, and underlying reasons can sometimes be traced
through several biblical writings and to an extent over large temporal dis-
tances. Placement of themes and entire chains of expression repeat
themselves with various modifications. Thus, e.g., one can follow the
 DEVELOPING A BIBLICAL-HISTORICAL INTERPRETATION @ 389

attitude of the believing community toward the state from the Jewish
Diaspora (Daniel, Esther, Ezra, Nehemiah) on down into apostolic
times (Ro 13:1ff.; 1Pe 2:13ff.). The process of revelation that tradition
history makes accessible unveils to us the rise of resurrection hope as
biblical promises found increasing assent. On the other hand, e.g., the
evangelists in their individuality as redactors draw from this tradition
history, applying oral and written transmissions and making them ser-
viceable for new purposes. Luke 18:1ff., the parable of the unjust judge,
offers an interesting example here; Luke builds an appeal against weari-
ness in prayer into his gospel.
Biblical-historical interpretation devotes concentrated attention to
all historical dimensions. It places high priority on understanding and
interpreting the Bible historically.
At the same time, however, it will pay heed to its special orienta-
tion points on that very same plane of history. The following comments
serve to demarcate such points.
The biblical-historical interpreter will remember, first, that he
does not labor as historian or even as a sort of historical design engineer
but as theologian in service to the church. History will therefore not take
on independent status for him but rather remain the sphere of God’s
activity. Precisely in the text’s historical characteristics he hears anew
the voice of the living God.
For biblical-historical interpretation, then, there can never be a
question of working historically “etsi deus non daretur” (“as if God did
not exist’’). It can never accept an atheistic conception of history. Here
lies a weighty difference with historical criticism, whose fundamental
and majority-supported starting point is that historical research knows
no God, at least not as a factor of history.'®
In contrast, biblical-historical interpretation reckons at every turn,
not only with the historical or self-understanding of the biblical wit-
nesses, but also with God himself, who testifies to his presence in his-
tory. In the very course of its work biblical-historical interpretation seeks
to encounter him.
390 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

Basically we have already said above that the goal of biblical-his-

torical interpretation can never lie simply in explaining the genesis of a
text. With such explanations the interpreter leaves the one seeking
understanding all alone at the decisive point where he most needs help.”
The genesis of a text can—not must!—be at most a preliminary stage
of understanding.
The next point of orientation may be subsumed under the heading
“formation of hypotheses.” Historical work remains closely related to
hypothesis formation. Revelation and faith, however, aim at certainty.
Exegesis with its historical work therefore ventures constantly onto a
stormy, ever-changing sea. This sea, however, is not boundless but
rather has secure banks. But it is not the hypotheses that can form these
banks; it is only the canonical text. Hypotheses, then, only furnish lines
of assistance. Because of this every interpreter has the task to divulge
with full honesty where he is arguing on the basis of hypotheses. It is an
important concern of biblical-historical interpretation that the distinc-
tion between hypotheses and facts, between value judgments and actual
observations, again be carried out with as much clarity as possible.
Hypotheses are, e.g., the acceptance of a Gospel-sayings source (Q), the
dominant source divisions in the Pentateuch, the acceptance of a Second
or Third Isaiah. It is a hypothesis that there was ever an adoptionist
Christology in the early Christian church. It is a hypothesis that the New
Testament contains pseudepigraphical writings.
What we have said regarding formation of hypotheses in the course
of historical exegesis leads naturally to our judgment concerning liter-
ary criticism. In general we may say that the results of so-called literary
criticism must be classified as hypothesis formation. Exceptions may be
found especially where literary sources become visible in the biblical
reports themselves, as, e.g., the songs of Yahweh’s wars (Nu 21:14f.), in
the documents mentioned in Ezra (Ezr 4—6), or in the citations from
Greek authors (Ac 17:28; Tit 1:12).
In distinction from previously ascendant biblical-critical opinion,
 DEVELOPING A BIBLICAL-HISTORICAL INTERPRETATION @ 391

a biblical-historical interpretation will therefore in any case base itself

on the final form of the canonical text. “In,’ “with? and “under” the his-
torical emergence of a biblical text God was indeed at work. The his-
torical event of revelation permitted these texts to arise the way they did,
conformed them to their final shape, and placed them in their deter-
mined position within the canon. The voice of the living God was at best
faintly audible in the prestages of this development; but it sounds loud
and clear when it comes to the goal of the text he intended to bring into
being—and did.
Precisely the difference from historical criticism moves us along
now to a further point of orientation regarding the kind of historical exe-
gesis we are proposing. This point can be characterized with the key
word analogy. As is well known, post-Enlightenment exegesis stood in
danger of making a possible analogy into the criterion of the truth of
reports. Theologians have succumbed to this danger even more than his-
torians. Troeltsch’s triad (criticism-analogy-correlation) with analogy at
its heart has not even been repudiated in recent Tiibingen theology.'*
Since a biblical-historical interpretation at its very heart emphasizes that
encounter with the living God is without analogy, at least as Troeltsch
defined it, it can no longer use analogy as a criterion of truth. That also
applies for the historical sphere of its interpretation.
This position has wide-ranging consequences. The supernatural,
the terror of entire generations of interpreters,'? returns to its legitimate
place—not as a calculable element of religious ratio (reason), but also
no longer “off-limits,” as it is for irreligious ratio. It comes to us with
the mystery of revelation in order to transform us through communica-
tion with this mystery.
Miracle again returns to the scene. We will not through our cate-
gories be able to determine what a miracle is or even may be. Precisely
here all previous experiences have limited explanatory value. Miracle
can be grasped only in the light of revelation. Divisions such as (possi-
ble) healing miracles and (impossible) nature miracles are rationalistic,
indeed laughable.
392 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

Prophecy makes a return, as well. That Jesus could not have

known of his resurrection, that Daniel 11 is too exact in what it fore-
tells to be actual prophecy, that the prophecy of Jerusalem’s trampling
by the Gentiles (Lk 21:24) must be the terminus a quo for the com-
position of Luke’s gospel—those are all critical Enlightenment
notions that a biblical-historical interpreter can no longer take as a
standard. His thinking is conditioned by the God who created time
and who will abolish time (Rev 10:6f.), the God who beyond all tem-
poral barriers revealed his secrets to the prophets (Rev 10:7). In short,
with the return of God into historical interpretation, genuine
prophecy again becomes a theme of interpretation. History is now a
“history that God has with mankind and thereby with his entire
creation.”
Let us once more take a characteristic example: the report of
Jesus’ baptism (Mt 3:13ff. par.). Historical-critical interpretation is
content to accept the text’s statement that Jesus was baptized by John.
It holds this text to be accurate on the grounds that the (early) Christian
church would not have invented a baptism of Jesus by the Baptist. But
historical-critical interpretation regards as superfluous all that goes
beyond the actual baptism event; it is suspicious, indeed not acceptable
on methodological grounds. “When for example,” writes Weder, “‘it is
said that the Spirit of God descended on Jesus like a dove, and that a
divine voice spoke from heaven, the historian cannot accord the value
of historical truth to these expressions for methodological reasons.”?!
Why not? Because in the modern worldview the supernatural and
superhistorical do not occur. Bultmann, on whose work Weder builds,”
declared that the New Testament’s view of history is in fact “mytho-
logical:”?? He pondered whether the dove of Matthew 3:13ff. might not
be derived from other accounts that make use of the ancient Near
Eastern kingbird”™ and saw in the divine voice an interpretive device of
the church, not an event.
We will leave the question open here whether modern man actu-
ally no longer believes in miracles. Contemporary “new religiosity”
 DEVELOPING A BIBLICAL-HISTORICAL INTERPRETATION @ 393

seems to take a different view, at any rate. We will also leave open
whether the modern historian, like a Machiavelli and Guicciardini, is as
desirous of keeping “God” so entirely “out of the picture’?’ as histori-
cal-critical interpreters claim. The decisive matter here is the concept of
history. If orie uses the concept of history that revelation provides, if one
begins from history as constituted by God, then historical interpretation
runs an entirely different course than in classic historical criticism. The
tyranny of analogy is broken. The deficient verificational capacity of the
world around us, our understanding of which can reflect more what we
project onto it than what we observe in it, no longer decides every ques-
tion. The voice from heaven and the dove were God-enabled, thoroughly
possible events. The occurrence stamps my understanding—and not the
opposite. The horizon of previous experience widens. Just because
something is unusual, or “supernatural” to use the customary term, that
does not mean it must be excluded from having “the value of historical
truth.’ To put it positively, the voice and the descent of the Spirit were
intended by the text to be understood as events. The report that these
events took place becomes true in “the reality characterized by God’s
continually new activity: With this, biblical-historical interpretation
takes an immense step forward in its possibilities for understanding and
explication. It no longer has a fixation with the history of an early church
who had to explain Jesus’ baptism by using John and thereby also jus-
tified its own baptismal practices. It is liberated to affirm knowledge of
the actual occurrence, in which Jesus receives the lasting gift of the
Spirit for the purpose of his messianic activity. It is likewise liberated to
affirm knowledge of the commission which the divine voice imparted
for this activity. The acceptance of Old Testament statements (Ge 22:2;
Ps 2:7; Isa 42:1) through the divine voice clarifies Jesus’ mission of
dying for sin. Biblical-historical interpretation hears, therefore, the voice
of the living God here, which speaks of his will to bring about redemp-
tion and salvation. That means that it encounters real salvation history,
not just a narrow slice of the history of the early church.
394 e BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

SYNTHETIC INTERPRETATION
Opening up the text, treated in previous sections, involved details and
differentiations. Synthetic interpretation involves getting at the whole.
It would seem reasonable from the outset to speak of a theologi-
cal exegesis at this point, having covered philological and historical exe-
gesis in the previous section. We recall that in the basic framework of
Reformation interpretation of Scripture, as we encounter it, e.g., in
Flacius, theologica tractatio (theological preparation) followed gram-
matica intellectio (philological understanding). And at this point, in
fact, subsequent to philological and historical exegesis, theological
viewpoints push more decisively into the foreground. Nevertheless: the
entire process of interpreting the Bible is theological, and theological
viewpoints were accordingly not absent from the exegetical steps dis-
cussed above. So the heading “Theological Interpretation” for this sec-
tion could give rise to the misunderstanding that it is first at this point
that theology comes into play. Therefore we have chosen the heading
“Synthetic Interpretation,’ which seems better suited. For it indicates
that now the process of opening up the text must bear fruit, and that most
of all the points of view of a synthetic outlook must have their turn.
The conspicuous mark of a synthetic interpretation is discussion.
The text, now already laid open in earlier steps, must be brought into dia-
logue with the following: #1) other texts of enscripturated revelation;
#2) previous interpreters, including dogmaticians; #3) the believing
Christian fellowship, the church; and #4) the challenges of the sur-
rounding world. The following remarks are intended to facilitate this
dialogue.
In speaking first of discussion with other revelatory texts, we are
expressing a real priority. Discussion with other participants is senseless
until we have taken the trouble to understand a biblical text within the
entirety of biblical revelation. Here is where justice is done to the point
of view of tota scriptura (the whole of Scripture). The knowledge that
the biblical texts, according to their own claim, are inspired, and that all
 DEVELOPING A BIBLICAL-HISTORICAL INTERPRETATION © 395

of Holy Scripture arose from the basis of a history of inspiration,

requires that we take seriously the canonical placement of a text. This
placement is the basis from which inner-biblical discussion ensues. On
the other hand, the other texts also possess their respective canonical
position and a function in the entirety of the canon derived from that
position. The “canonical approach” proposed by B. S. Childs proves
once more to be justified.
But it is not only canonical classification that plays a role here.
Discussion with other revelatory texts can only succeed if we encounter
there the voice of the same living God. That is, this discussion presup-
poses the unity of Scripture. Whoever gives up the unity of Scripture can
at best partially, and perhaps not at all, carry out a biblical classification
or an inner-biblical comparison. Clearly, at this point a biblical-histori-
cal interpretation differs powerfully from a historical-critical one. For
the essence of historical criticism is precisely that it, stamped with the
idea of difference, nullifies the unity of the Bible.
Let us take the relation between Romans 3 and James 2 as an
example. If one places Romans 3:28 (“For we maintain that a man is jus-
tified by faith apart from observing the law” [NIV]) directly next to James
2:24 (“You see that a person is justified by what he does and not by faith
alone” [NIV]), the impression arises that only one of the two can be cor-
rect. Things change, however, as soon as the context is considered.
Romans 1-3 deals with the question, “Where does salvation come
from?” James 2, in contrast, speaks from within the experience of sal-
vation. While the epistle to the Romans must deny the expectation that
man can achieve his salvation through works, James’s epistle must deal
with the expectation that we obviously cannot achieve our own salva-
tion because it was long since given to us in Christ. In other words,
Romans 3 leads toward the Cross; James 2 speaks from the point of
already having arrived there. Romans 3 says: we can be saved only
through Jesus. James 2 says: we forsake salvation if our faith is empty
and dead. Both passages are rightly accorded their canonical place. Both
statements are necessary and correct. In both passages the voice of the
396 e BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

living God speaks to us. They contradict each other as little as two dif-
ferent lines in a father’s letter to one of his sons, in which he first writes,
“Dear Son, I leave you my entire estate?’ and then at the end writes,
“Please share it with your brother.”
This example makes clear once more that discussion with various
revelatory texts in a biblical-historical interpretation proceeds from the
assumption that the same Divine Author stands behind all these texts
and that they therefore comprise a unity.
But what is the situation when not just individual texts but com-
plexes of large dimensions are compared with each other? Let us take
the example of the history of Israel. Since Wellhausen, critical theology
has been dominated by the assumption of various narrative threads in
the Pentateuch or Hexateuch, threads which were later redactionally
connected and reworked. The narrative unity of the Pentateuch was
thereby dissolved. Wellhausen’s approach drastically altered the histor-
ical picture presented by the text. Now the invasion of Canaan is the
result of the infiltration of various groups. These groups first united to
form the entirety of “Israel” after they all entered Canaan independently.
Each group brought with it respective bodies of tradition that in the
course of time were intermingled with each other.
A biblical-historical interpretation proceeds quite differently here.
It would first note that Israel’s fellowship of faith, as far as we can fol-
low its convictions, never took any other historical shape than the one
that lies before us in the Pentateuch or Hexateuch. It would further note
that both prophetic and anti-Jewish texts proceed from the same histor-
ical picture (cf. e.g., Jos 24:2ff.; 2Ki 14:6; Pss 78; 106; Hos 2:17; 9: 10ff.;
11:1; 12:4ff.; Mic 6:4f.; Mal 3:22; also the non-canonical Sirach 4449).
It will ultimately find the same historical picture in the New Testament
(cf. Ac 7; Heb 11). Biblical-historical interpretation finds, therefore, that
revelation furnishes a unified historical portrait. It will be loathe to con-
tradict this portrait. It will rather find it confirmed by the agreement of
the texts, and it will make it its starting ‘point for subsequent
deliberations.
 DEVELOPING A BIBLICAL-HISTORICAL INTERPRETATION @ 397

Such acceptance of the texts, precisely in the horizon of discussion

with as many revelatory texts as possible, is of a piece with the open-
ness that a biblical-historical interpretation wants to maintain in its syn-
thetic work. Openness here means readiness to listen and the
willingness to let previous experiences and knowledge be corrected by
revelation. Also on this level, biblical-historical interpretation—in con-
trast to historical criticism—will not make its own “worldview” into the
grid through which understanding must pass. Biblical-historical inter-
pretation can only champion an open worldview, whereas historical crit-
icism seeks “in that sense” to be “content-critical [sachkritisch]’ “as it
makes its own contemporary understanding of reality into the critical
standard of statements found in the sources.” Biblical-historical inter-
pretation is open in the sense that it does not rule out the contents of rev-
elation. It is also open in the sense that it permits revelation, as the case
may be, to pass along no closed worldview to us at all!
In the course of this openness it becomes more and more appar-
ent that an interpretation suited to revelation can only proceed induc-
tively. E.g., it may not simply replace an (allegedly?) modern worldview
with an (allegedly?) biblical one. It must rather feel its way forward, step
by step and issue by issue, under constantly renewed listening. In the
course of this openness it becomes further apparent that a biblical-his-
torical interpretation must pay attention to the progressive character of
revelation. Since revelation itself is historical and accompanies the peo-
ple of God along its way, some of its messages emerge very gradually.
It therefore makes no sense to seek to trace out a comprehensive mes-
sianic doctrine or resurrection message already back in the Pentateuch.
And finally, a result of openness to discussion is that individual
statements, passages, and the like may not be loaded with more freight
than they can bear. That which is unclear, if it does not admit of clarifi-
cation from the context, must remain in its obscurity. Where various
interpretations are possible, they must be listed and perhaps left open
alongside each other. Wide-ranging consequences cannot be pressed on
the basis of disputed passages. The danger must be held firmly in view
398 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

that the interpreter might make bold to become an extrabiblical source

of Scripture—violating Deuteronomy 4:2 and Revelation 22:18.
To return to the rubric “discussion,” which plays such a large role
in synthetic interpretation, until now we have spoken of discussion with
other revelatory texts. It has become clear that this is a particular
weighty feature of biblical-historical interpretation.
Now, however, we must ponder discussion with previous inter-
preters. Texts, as is well known, have their own history of interpretation
and effect. They influence individual interpreters, even generations,
indeed even whole Christian communions. Whether this is for the good
or for ill we may leave to the side for now. Discussion with other inter-
preters is especially important if we assume that the Holy Spirit has
worked in other church members and in the church of all ages. Such dis-
cussion is grounded in the expectation of learning from other thinkers
of other times and places.
In this form analogia fidei (analogy of faith) and interpretatio fidei
(interpretation of faith) report back to us from earlier discussion. In light
of the history of interpretation in recent generations we must advance
here a trio of exclamation points, so to speak. #1) The first relates to the
weight accorded various periods of church history. It has become cus-
tomary to pay heed almost exclusively to post-Enlightenment voices.
Only Luther and Calvin receive anything like the same degree of con-
sideration. The result of this emphasis on the most “modern” possible
interpretive literature is the neglect of patristics, at least by Protestants.
Such neglect is especially regrettable because valuable material for
shedding light on biblical statements can be found in the most ancient
utterances from church history. Naturally the wheat has to be separated
from the chaff here. Yet study of the church fathers remains a rewarding
task in any case. #2) A second exclamation point concerns dogmatics.
As arule, dogmatics is an embodiment of stability, continuity, and con-
servative character. Its disadvantage is its natural attachment to tradition.
Yet it can warn exegesis, which is sometimes too interpretively fleet-
footed for its own good, of blind alleys and thin ice. #3) The third excla-
 DEVELOPING A BIBLICAL-HISTORICAL INTERPRETATION @ 399

mation point has to do with confessions. Confessions furnish, among

other things, a concentrated history of interpretation and effect. Where
they hinder observation of the text they are damaging. The time should
be past when they worked as filters, or in league with dogmatics even
prescribed entire doctrinal systems. No responsible interpreter, however,
will facilely knock down the warning signs or step beyond the guide-
posts that the confessions of the church have erected in the course of
time.
In addition to discussion with other interpreters there is also dis-
~ cussion with the Christian church. We have already said much about this
as we reflected on the embeddedness of the interpreter in the church. We
will therefore restrict ourselves here to what is most salient. First, lively
discussion with other adherents of our believing community is irre-
placeable. No amount of myriads of secondary literature is able to off-
set the lack that arises from sundering the interpreter from the church.
Discussion, witnessing, preaching are the best means of testing the
sense or senselessness of an interpretation. That is quite simply the very
character of revelation, which wants to mediate, encounter, and estab-
lish fellowship. Its goal is not the isolated writing desk. Next, the church
embodies the antidote against an interpreter’s cognitive one-sidedness.
The text that he interprets certainly has more levels than the merely cog-
nitive. It is, however, his occupational hazard and constant danger that
he threatens to lose sight of the dynamic and ethical understanding—
modes of understanding that in themselves set boundaries for the cog-
nitive element and furnish necessary supplementation. And precisely
these modes of understanding are alive in the church, as a rule, with
stronger force. Further, the church often preserves nonscientific tradi-
tions that may have long since proven themselves and may assume vir-
tual confessional status. It may be that such traditions are unbiblical
cultural accommodations. But it may also be the case that behind them
lies a concentrated, partially even notable history of interpretation and
effect. That would be precisely the point at issue in discussion, and in
common prayer and witness.
400 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

Finally, above we mentioned discussion with the challenges of the

surrounding world. German-language literature that researches this
point is scanty. This state of affairs conceals a curious contradiction to
the blithe confidence with which many theologians appeal to the “spirit”
of their time or a “modern understanding of man and world?”* Our dis-
cussion must avoid two extremes. One extreme would be to make, con-
sciously or unconsciously, this much-appealed-to spirit of the age into
a second norma normans (normative standard) alongside of Scripture.
The person who says that we should talk in such a way that “there is no
need to feel ashamed before the bar of reason’” is at least on the way to
setting up such a second authority. The other extreme would consist in
alienation from the world or ghetto isolation. An exegete who no longer
hears whom or what is affected by recent local and world developments
will hardly be in any position to offer helpful answers in service to the
church. It is no coincidence that the age of the “apologists” marked an
entire epoch in early church history. In this connection we must once
more point to the character of revelation, whose goal is encounter and
which seeks no less than to make telling contact with our own time and
its specific challenges, too.
Now we must touch on the goal of all these levels of discussion.
They take place in a quite particular framework, namely, as contribu-
tions that should facilitate a comprehensive interpretation. It was already
pointed out that this comprehensive or synthetic interpretation possesses
the character of a theological interpretation. If this interpretation is to
be comprehensive, then in certain cases it will proceed from the basis
of a multiple sense of Scripture. If the task, e.g., is to interpret a histor-
ical text, then the interpreter will utilize typology so as to render the
voice of the living God audible in the present. Often the impetus for a
typological, prophetic, or when appropriate allegorical interpretation
will come from interchange with other interpretations in the history of
the church or from discussion with other church members. |
The interpreter arrives at a goal, however, only when he is in the
position to grasp the purpose of a text. In any case, as encounter revela-
 DEVELOPING A BIBLICAL-HISTORICAL INTERPRETATION ® 401

tion is conditioned by its purposeful intent. That is true of even the small
units of a text. If the interpreter misses this purpose that revelation itself
establishes, then his interpretation runs aground at a decisive point. This
insight gives rise once more to rejection of all content criticism
(Sachkritik) of the Bible. For content criticism transforms the bent of the
statements and the specific intent of the text. At this point we once more
observe in all its sharpness the difference between a historical-critical
and a biblical-historical interpretation. For historical criticism by its
very nature reserves the right to subject the text to content criticism.
The purpose of a Bible text has been expressed for centuries as its
scopus (major point). The scopus requires the interpreter to ponder once
more the special features of a given text along with the features that it
has in common with other texts. He must weigh wherein the particular
profile of the text he is dealing with lies.
In this last-mentioned interpretive decision, that of determining
Scopus, it becomes absolutely clear how great the space has grown for
the interpreter to exercise his own discretion. This discretion has grown
from a small amount in determining the text, to ever-larger proportions
at the stages of philological and historical exegesis, and then increased
yet again in synthetic interpretation with its plurality of possibilities.
What has also grown much larger is the weightiness of the presupposi-
tions from which the interpreter proceeds. Finally, the differences we
have seen between historical-critical and biblical-historical exegesis
have also grown.
By now it is all the more evident to the interpreter that in the pres-
ence of the text he has become “contemporary” together with other
interpreters and other church members. By “contemporary” we mean
that he takes his place, alongside other hearers who possessed this text
and will possess it in the future, in a fundamentally similar situation.
The encounter that revelation seeks to mediate through him is funda-
mentally none other than the encounter that it offers to other persons.
All splitting up of the listening audience, whether into “ancient” and
“modern” man, whether into pre- or post-Enlightenment man, whether
402 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

into “primitive” or “civilized” man—all these and any similar divisions

are dashed by the voice of the living God, who addresses all persons for
their salvation. But the interpreter has not only become “contemporary.”
He is, at least from now on, a “participant” in this encounter. There is
no need to repeat what we wrote above about this involvement, about
the decisions and the struggles, the bewilderment in oratio-tentatio-
meditatio (prayer-struggle-reflection), the gift of possibilities of under-
standing, the interweaving of one’s own life story. But we would
underscore simply this: as a participant the interpreter will in any case
go forth from this encounter as a transformed person, whether he agrees
with or denies the text’s claims which have mediated the encounter to
him.

COMMUNICATIVE INTERPRETATION
With this final step we leave the sphere in which historical-critical inter-
pretation, which is often parallel with our biblical-historical approach,
labors. For since the Enlightenment the tendency has become estab-
lished to terminate exegesis with scopus (the text’s major point). True,
still in 1810 the entire second part of K. A. G. Keil’s Lehrbuch der
Hermeneutik (Hermeneutics Handbook) was devoted to this theme:
“The instruction of others about the rightly understood meaning of the
books of the New Testament.” But even Keil distinguishes between
“popular” interpretation of Scripture and that of “experts” and eventu-
ally makes it known that he much prefers the second, which is intended
“for the actual theologians.”*' In the course of the history of interpreta-
tion, then, popular (which also means practical) Scripture interpretation
was left to the side. That had calamitous consequences. A vast quantity
of material languished on the far side of the scopus barrier, hidden in
the journals of historical exegesis, guarded by the disdain of professional
exegetes for the “popular.” Conversely, “popular” evangelists left scien-
tific resources lie untouched. They laid out their message along tradi-
tional lines, almost unaffected by scientific-exegetical discoveries and
 DEVELOPING A BIBLICAL-HISTORICAL INTERPRETATION @ 403

disputes—and met with considerable success. There were only a few

theologians—Karl Heim would be an example—who were also effec-
tive in popular evangelism.
With our step into communicative interpretation we draw nearer,
however, to the basic principles of precritical, reformational Scripture
interpretation. We recall that such interpretation in Flacius’ presentation
had three major components: grammatica intellectio—theologica trac-
tatio—cognitio practica (philological understanding—theological
preparation—practical knowledge). The last step led to practical appli-
cation. Flacius did, to be sure, distinguish between simple application
for laypersons and scholarly application for theologians.” We also recall
the role of application in Francke, who demanded of his students that
they “become more spiritual” through their labor on the Bible.* Finally
we recall Bengel’s exegesis which issued in homiletical application. All
these examples encourage us to press a biblical-historical interpretation
past the point of synthetic interpretation, past the scopus (major point).
But what do we mean by the expression “communicative inter-
pretation”? It refers to transforming our interpretation into praxis. What
was earlier worked out is now shared with others, communicated. To
whom? First to the church, then to the surrounding world. To both we
owe the interpreted message at which we have arrived. But in that the
interpreter himself is responsible for this transformation, his interpreta-
tion gains additional dimensions once more. This is less true for the cog-
nitive sphere, which could end with the scopus. It holds much more true
for the unified sphere in which the interpreter labors, e.g., the dynamic
and ethical levels of understanding. His service in the church takes on
concrete form not least here.
Classical forms of this transformation are the sermon outline, the
lecture précis, and the evangelistic presentation. By such means, of
course, exegesis is also throwing up a bridge to “practical theology.’
As an example let us take Luke 4: 16-21. Determination of the text
has presumably led us to its original form and in the process clarified
the extent of the quotation from Isaiah 61:1. Opening up the text showed
404 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

us the characteristics of synagogue worship of that time, the prevailing

messianic expectation, the tradition history of messianic texts and inter-
pretations, the institution of the jubilee year, and more. Synthetic inter-
pretation has made Jesus’ messianic claim clear, a claim about which
more is learned from interaction with other Gospel texts. We realize,
likewise in discussion with other revelatory texts, how Jesus woos
Israel, how he loves the synagogue, and how he is willing to enter into
battles and disputes, indeed how he is also willing to walk the way of
suffering—the way of the cross. It has become clear, further, that all
Jesus’ ministry was grounded in Israel’s Holy Scriptures. We realize that
he is a Messiah of the Word who offers redemption from guilt and judg-
ment, not a Messiah of armed struggle seeking to bring down existing
structures. In discussion with previous interpreters we have become con-
scious of the spectrum of interpretations, ranging, e.g., from Luther’s
Magnificat interpretation to Miintzer’s of a revolutionary appeal. In the
midst of this spectrum the question continually rings: who was—no,
who is Jesus? In discussion with the church and the challenges of the
surrounding world we next saw that various understandings of Jesus to
this very day, on the part of both Christians and Jews, are often malig-
nant, that they create tensions like unto those that arose in our text in
Nazareth, so that Jesus’ claims impinge on the present in provocative
fashion. We recognized the purpose of the section as being Jesus’ self-
testimony about his messiahship. Our scopus (major point) turned out
like this: “Jesus is the announced and expected Messiah!” But. . . now
what? How does the result of our interpretation make its way into the
present, filled as it is with opinions, currents, doubts, and conflicts? Does
the scopus remain entrusted to silent paper, or will its words be urged
on the church in the midst of its ongoing striving for the truth? How does
the interpreter bear the claim of his text into the surrounding world
which revelation strives to penetrate? There is only one way: that the text
becomes message.
The communicative interpretation of which we speak is basically
already demanded by the encounter-character of revelation. Revelation
 DEVELOPING A BIBLICAL-HISTORICAL INTERPRETATION @ 405

does not only take aim at the interpreter. It rather aims through him to
others beyond and draws the interpreter into the event of mediation
which knows no bounds until the end of the earth (cf. Ac 1:8).
Let us return to our example. The scopus (major point), “Jesus is
the announced and expected Messiah!” forms the starting point for the
subsequent communicative interpretation. This can take various shapes,
e.g., aS a doctrinal sermon, as a unit of instruction in religious educa-
tion, or as a component in an evangelistic application.
Here we choose an evangelistic application. It might be sketched
- out roughly as follows:
1. A world full of expectancy. Nazareth has a sensation: a local res-
ident worked miracles in Capernaum (cf. Lk 4:23 with 4:31ff.). Now he
is there. The Sabbath is anxiously awaited. The synagogue will function
as the contemporary theater. And he comes! Masterful, how he threads
himself into the reading at an appropriate moment. Behind all this lie
expectations spanning many generations: prophets are to return, finally
even the Messiah. Behind all this lie disappointments spanning many gen-
erations: again and again hopes were dashed. Even the Maccabees turned
out to be entirely normal overlords. And our world? What are our
expectancies? What are our disappointments? Is this Jesus any better... ?
2. A word full of power. “Coincidence,” that Jesus is handed the
Isaiah scroll? He did not ask for it. It is God’s leading. God’s leading also
lets him alight on the passage in Isaiah 61. What an explosive text! It is
centuries old. Interpreted again and again, sifted through repeatedly and
then some more. But now its actual meaning: “On me,’ “he anointed
me’! Anointed: that means Christ, Messiah. And over the long arc of
many centuries this Word is fulfilled: “Today”! God’s Word never fails
(Ps 33:4).
3. He’s the one! Jesus! He himself says so. We don’t have to wait
for the Messiah any longer. We don’t need some other salvation-bearer.
And Israel will also not have any other Messiah. Jesus has the liberat-
ing, indeed the redemptive, Word: you are free from guilt. You are freed
from Satan’s clutches. You enter God’s kingdom. You receive under-
406 e@ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

standing, illumination about the truth. Your life may fall to pieces, sick-
ness may ravage you externally. Charges that you have wasted your life
come to nothing—nothing can take the kingdom of God from you, or
rather you from it. Jesus remains the Liberator, for he dies for you. He
invites you to come to him—‘Today”’!
Certainly, a communicative interpretation always remains an out-
line. But this necessity of saying the most important in briefest possible
compass is healthy, indeed compulsory. It is the culmination and touch-
stone of our interpretation. Let us reflect on this once more in what
follows.
Communicative interpretation is healthy first just because it
demands intelligibility from us. It is, so to speak, medication against the
tendency of the theologian to artificial, affected ways of speaking or
writing. It does away, then, with language barriers. The interpreter must
now himself undertake the job of transforming his results. Here he dis-
covers once again what is nourishing food and what is just gawdy wrap-
ping. In this connection one may perhaps speak of a “second naivete.”
Simplifications are permissible when they arise through adequate
reflection.
Further, we now recognize the justification for that old arrange-
ment in which the “meditation” had to precede the sermon outline. Such
a—legitimate—meditation once again penetrates to the Word that bears
fruit; it serves as a test of all interpretations derived from this fruitful
Word and reveals whether those interpretations are worthy. Such a med-
itation can satisfy the counsel that J. T. Beck once offered: “Spare no
pains to seek more and more the most basic original sense of the bibli-
cal words, and let this be the root-sense of everything additional?”
To express it plainly: this transformation, this “second naivete,”
this essential simplifying, also means humiliation for the interpreter.
Much that he was proud of is unmasked as empty, glittering wrapping.
What’s more, he discovers how narrow the wavelength is on which he
communicates. He will be surprised again and again at how modest the
wavelength appears that carries the fruit of his labor and ability, whether
 DEVELOPING A BIBLICAL-HISTORICAL INTERPRETATION © 407

he seeks to communicate as a religious educator, a preacher or Bible

teacher, or an evangelist. F
But with this humiliation we have already touched on something
actually quite positive. Through concern for communicative interpreta-
tion the interpreter is reminded anew of the supplementary unity of his
person and his work. He takes to heart once more that what is demanded
is that he be a Christian and not just a theologian. He once more enters
naturally into the modes of understanding which he was in danger of for-
getting: the dynamic, the ethical, and so on. In a word, the exegete
becomes a witness. Where this is nullified, as is the case in many quar-
ters of historical criticism, the interpreter is robbed of his existential,
complete breadth and his original vocation.
In life with the church, in the communicability of his research, he
discovers in a salutary manner the gifts that he has. He discovers how
his interpretation becomes helpful, how his exegesis bears fruit. It is first
the church that teaches him how to deal aright with critical interaction
and polemic. For the Christian community is where the bitter fruits of
polemic become visible. That lack of restraint which reduces the oppo-
nent to the level of a beast is certainly not without precedent in exeget-
ical literature, but it is not to be taken up in interpretation and
communication that has the church as its basis and model.
Finally, there is one more point to mention.
Earlier we explained communicative interpretation in the concrete
forms of sermon outline, lecture précis, or evangelistic presentation. We
gained insight into the fact that exegesis that leads to the final step of
communicative interpretation already extends into the area of practical
theology. We reminded ourselves of the communication, the lively
exchange within the Christian fellowship, exchange which requires the
interpreter to be a complete person and which first enables his service
to be fruitful. In all this we observe that the interpreter is a member of
the Christian community. As such he is, like every other church mem-
ber, called to be a witness.
Let us explore this calling to bear witness a bit farther. Certainty
408 e@ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

is a central component to bearing witness in the full sense. If the wit-

ness is uncertain about someone or something, he can only testify to his
uncertainty about this someone or this something. He cannot testify to
those things. In that communicative interpretation, as participation in
the church, calls on the interpreter as witness, it obligates him to the
clarification of his certainty. If previously, most of all in his historical
investigations, he tended to dwell on hypotheses or languish in indeci-
siveness, then communicative interpretation now fetches him back onto
the ground of certainty. The assertio which lay so much on Luther’s
heart becomes indispensable in the conveying of the message.
An example from church history may illustrate this. In his studies
entitled Evangelium als Schicksal Karlmann Beyschlag pictures for us
the role that the biblical word about seeking and finding (Mt 7:7) played
in the early stages of Christendom.* “The Christians”—thus the apol-
ogist Aristides described existence renewed by biblical revelation—
“moved about, and searched, and found the truth.” Is there any better
way to characterize the interpretive enterprise? At its end something is
“found.” He who has “found,” however, has become a witness.

FINAL COMMENT

We have traversed the way of a biblical-historical interpretation as far

as communicative interpretation. In continuity with his previous faith-
and life-history, the interpreter has approached his text. His renewed dis-
cussion with revelation, the process of interpretation that he pursues,
issues again into the totality of his life history. He communicates with
others what he has “found.” Out of this “finding” emerges his certainty.
With this certainty he steps into the world around him. Now he person-
ifies the transformation that is created through encounter with revela-
tion. In passing along the interpretation that has transformed him and
made him into a witness, his interpretation itself becomes testimony.
Only in these categories—in discussion, in communication, in tes-
timony, and in encounter—can the event of interpretation be grasped
 DEVELOPING A BIBLICAL-HISTORICAL INTERPRETATION @ 409

aright. Out of it, by necessity, a “hermeneutic of encounter” must arise.

For encounter is the fundamental character of revelation. True, its goal
is not in encounter with itself. Its goal is rather . . . Jesus (Jn 21:4;
Mt 17:8).
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 ~~ Appendix

B elow is a table showing possible steps for a biblical-historical inter-

pretation.

I. DETERMINING THE TEXT

1. Assessing variants
2. Translation
II. OPENING UP THE TEXT
1. Overarching structural features of the text
2. Context
3. Grammatical and linguistic structure
4. Important word meanings; exegesis of concepts where
called for
5. Genre
6. Reassessment of translation
7. Integration into historical setting
8. Comparative religions analysis
9. Tradition history and where appropriate redaction history
10. Literary sources (if any)
Ill. SYNTHETIC INTERPRETATION
1. Discussion with other revealed texts (inner-biblical com-
parison)
2. Discussion with previous interpreters (church-historical
412 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

comparison; history of interpretation and its effects; prior

use of text in dogmatics)
Discussion with the Christian community
Discussion with the challenges of the surrounding world
Purpose of the text
ee Summarized theological interpretation
ie
fs Major point (scopus)
IV. COMMUNICATIVE INTERPRETATION
 Bibliography

Ba below include abbreviations used in footnotes. Abbreviations

ollow those given in Siegfried Schwertner, Internationales
Abkiirzungsverzeichnis fiir Theologie und Grenzgebiete, Berlin/New
York, 1974.
An addendum to Schwertner’s list is JSOT = Journal for the Study
of the Old Testament.
Full bibliographic data for titles cited just once is often found in
the relevant footnote. These titles normally do not appear below but may
be accessed via the author index.

Abraham, W. J. The Divine Inspiration of Holy Scripture. Oxford/New

York/Toronto/Melbourne, 1981.
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Abrey, L. J. “La vie d’ un anabaptiste strasbourgeois au seiziéme siécle:
Michael Meckel.” RHPhR 57 (1977): 195-207.
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Achtemeier, P. J. An Introduction to the New Hermeneutic. Philadelphia,
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Ahn, B.-M. Draussen vor dem Tor. Gottingen, 1986.
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Aland, K. “Das Problem des neutestamentlichen Kanons.”’ In
Kasemann, 134-58.
414 e BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

abbreviation: Aland, Kanon.

Aland, K. “Der Hallesche Pietismus und die Bibel.” In O. Sohngen, ed.,
Die bleibende Bedeutung des Pietismus, 29-69. Witten/Berlin,
1960.
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Amberg, E.-H. Die Autoritdt der Heiligen Schrift in der deutschen evan-
gelischen Dogmatik seit der Jahrhundertwende. Dissertation pho-
tocopy. Leipzig, 1956.
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Aner, K. Die Theologie der Lessingzeit. Halle, 1929.
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Asmussen, H. Die Heilige Schrift. Berlin, 1967.
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Aune, D. “On the Origins of the ‘Council of Jamnia’ Myth.’ JBL 110/3
(1991): 491-93.
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Barnikol, E. “Der Briefwechsel zwischen Strauss und Baur.” ZKG 73

(1962): 74-125.
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Barnikol, E. Ferdinand Christian Baur als rationalistisch-kirchlicher
Theologe. Berlin, 1970.
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Barr, J. “Childs’ Introduction to the Old Testament as Scripture?’ JSOT
16 (1980): 12-23.
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Barr, J. Holy Scripture. Philadelphia, 1983.
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Barth, H.-M. “Gottes Wort ist dreifaltig:” ThLZ 113 (1988): col. 241-54.
abbreviation: H. M. Barth.
Barth, K. Die kirchliche Dogmatik, I, 2. 4th ed. Zollikon-Ziirich, 1948.
abbreviation: Barth, KD I, 2.
 BIBLIOGRAPHY @ 415

Baur, F. C. An Herrn Dr. Karl Hase. Tiibingen, 1855.

abbreviation: Baur, An Hase. *
Bayer, O. “Hamann.” TRE 14 (1985): 395-403.
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from the Wrong Texts?” Themelios 14/3 (1989): 89-96.
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und Haus. Pt. 1, 2d ed. Stuttgart, 1869.
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Beisser, F. Claritas scripturae bei Martin Luther. Forschungen zur
Kirchen- und Dogmengeschichte, 18. Gottingen, 1966.
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NZSTh 15 (1973): 192-214.
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Die Bekenntnisschriften der evangelisch-lutherischen Kirche. 5th ed.
Gottingen, 1963.
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Christi. 2d ed. Stuttgart, 1773.
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Berg, J. van den. “De uitdraging van het historisch—kritisch onderzoek.”
GTT 77 (1977): 239-59.
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Berger, K. Exegese des Neuen Testaments. Heidelberg, 1977.
abbreviation: Berger.
Berkhof, L. Principles of Biblical Interpretation (Sacred Hermeneutics).
Grand Rapids, 1974.
416 e BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

abbreviation: L. Berkhof.
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schaften. PhG, 78/79, 2d ed. Tiibingen, 1972.
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Cath(M) 18 (1964): 268-90.
abbreviation: Beumer, Cath.
Beumer, J. Die katholische Inspirationslehre zwischen Vatikanum I und
IT. SBS, 20, 1966.
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26. Tiibingen, 1987.
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 BIBLIOGRAPHY @ 417

Boeckh, A. Encyclopédie und Methodologie der philologischen

Wissenschaften. Leipzig, 1877.
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abbreviation: Bring.
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418 e BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

abbreviation: Bultmann, Mythologie.

Burkhardt, H. Die Inspiration heiliger Schriften bei Philo von
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Calvin, J. Unterricht in der christlichen Religion (Institutio religionis

christianae). Translated from the last edition by Prof. D. E. F. Karl
Miiller. 2d ed. Neukirchen, 1928.
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Campenhausen, H. Freiherr v. Die Entstehung der christlichen Bibel.
BHTh, 39. Tiibingen, 1968.
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Carson, D. A. “Hermeneutics: A brief assessment of some recent
trends.” Themelios (1980): 12-20.
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Carson, D. A. “Recent Developments in the Doctrine of Scripture.” In
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Catchpole, D. R. “Tradition History:’ In Marshall, 165-80.
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“Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy, The.’ In Journal of the
Evangelical Theological Society 21/4 (1978): 289-96.
abbreviation: Chicago
Childs, B. S. Biblical Theology in Crisis. Philadelphia, 1970.
abbreviation: Childs, Theology.
Childs, B. S. Introduction to the Old Testament as Scripture.
Philadelphia, 1979.
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Chmiel, J. “L’inspiration biblique chez Saint Justin?’ Analecta
Cracoviensia 9 (1977): 155-64.
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Choisy, E. “Turrettini?’ RE 20 (1908): 165-71.
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 BIBLIOGRAPHY ® 419

Cole, S. G. The History of Fundamentalism. Westport, 1931. Reprint

1971.
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Conzelmann, H., and Lindemann, A. Arbeitsbuch zum Neuen
Testament. 3d ed. Tiibingen, 1977.
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Courth, F. “Die Evangelienkritik des D. Fr. Straub im Echo seiner
Zeitgenossen.” In Schwaiger, 60-98.
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Daube, D. The New Testament and Rabbinic Judaism. Jordan Lectures

in Comparative Religion, 2. London, 1956.
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Delitzsch, F. Jesaja. 5th ed. Reprint of 3d ed., 1879. Giessen/Basel,
1984.
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Christentum. Gottingen, 1925.
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24. Miinchen, 1950.
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Dilschneider, O. Ich glaube an den Heiligen Geist. Wuppertal, 1969.
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288-305. Leipzig/Berlin, 1924.
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420 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

Dilthey, W. “Die Entstehung der Hermeneutik.” Gessamelte Schriften,

V, pp. 317-38. Leipzig/Berlin, 1924.
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Dinkler, E. “Bibelautoritaét und Bibelkritik.” SgV, 193. Tiibingen, 1950.
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Dobschiitz, E. von. Vom Auslegen des Neuen Testaments. 2d ed.
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Doeve, J. W. Jewish Hermeneutics in the Synoptic Gospels and Acts.
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Droysen, J. G. Grundriss der Historik.1858. Reprint. Halle, 1925.
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Testament. Vol. 1, pt. 3, 3d ed. Gottingen, 1914.
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Eakins, J. K. “Moses.” RExp 74 (1974): 461-71.

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Ebeling, G. “Hermeneutik:’ RGG, 3, 3d ed., col. 242-62, 1959.
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Matthdusinterpretation. AzTh, 2d series, 14. 1968.
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 BIBLIOGRAPHY ® 421

Egger, W. Methodenlehre zum Neuen Testament. Leipzig, 1989

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Elert, W. Der christliche Glaube. 3d ed. Hamburg, 1956.
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Elert, W. Morphologie des Luthertums. I. Miinchen, 1931.
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Ellis, E. E. Prophecy and Hermeneutic in Early Christianity. 2d ed.
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Esking, E. Glaube und Geschichte in der theologischen Exegese Ernst
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Falckenberg, R. Geschichte der neueren Philosophie. 8th ed.

Berlin/Leipzig, 1921.
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422 e@ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

Foerster, W. Von Valentin zu Herakleon. Giessen, 1928.

abbreviation: Foerster.
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Gadamer, H.-G. Wahrheit und Methode. 3d ed. Tiibingen, 1972.

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 BIBLIOGRAPHY @ 423

Geiger, W. Spekulation und Kritik. FGLP, 10th series, vol. 28. Miinchen,
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424 e BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

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Wolff, H. W. “Zur Hermeneutik des Alten Testaments.” In Probleme,
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(1988): 1-16.
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Wrede, W. Uber Aufgabe und Methode der sogenannten
Neutestamentlichen Theologie. Gottingen, 1897.
abbreviation: Wrede.

Yri, N. Quest for Authority. Kisumu/Nairobi, 1978.

abbreviation: Yri.

Zahn, T. Grundriss der Geschichte des Neutestamentlichen Kanons. 2d

ed. Leipzig, 1904.
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Zockler, O. Der Prophet Daniel. THBW, 17. Bielefeld/Leipzig, 1870.
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Zuntz, G. “Ein Heide las das Markusevangelium.” In Markus-—
Philologie, edited by H. Cancik. WUNT, 33. 1984.
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 wnatrisen c) Weer
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 Endnotes

CHAPTER ONE: Defining the Hermeneutical Task

Cf. Heinrici, p. 719.
Cf. recently Carson, Hermeneutics, pp. 12ff.
Liicke, p. 18.
Heinrici, p. 719.
Dilthey, Schriften V, pp. 320, 332. Cf. Bultmann, GV II, p. 211.
Mussner, Aufgaben, p. 7.
Sar
eee
SE Dilthey, Schriften V, p. 331, refers to Schleiermacher’s views as
“foundational.”
Schleiermacher, p. 3.
J. S. Semler, “Lebensbeschreibung von ihm selbst abgefasst.” Vol. 1. (Halle,
1981): 208. Cf. Heinrici, p. 737.
Bultmann, GV II, pp. 211, 215.
. Ibid., p. 213. Cf. Fuchs, p. 116 (“theory of scientific understanding”).
Harnack, p. 8.
Bultmann, GV II, p. 216; Lehmann, p. 61; Wach, RGG, col. 1572; Spranger,
p.2t,
Heinrici, p. 719; cf. Torm, p. 1.
Liicke, p. 18; cf. p. 5.
Ibid., p. 4.
Schleiermacher, p. 32.
Dilthey, Schriften V, p. 331.
Ibid.; cf. Betti, p. 13: “inversion . . . of the creative process.”
Torm, p. If.
. According to Torm (ibid., p. 1), this “theory of interpretation” goes back to J.
C. Dannhauer (1654).
. Ricoeur, HThR, p. 23.
. Ibid. Ricoeur’s ultimate aim is then the self-understanding of the person “in
front of the text” (p. 29).
Barth, KD I, 2, p. 512.
Ricoeur, HThR, p. 29.
Dilthey, Schriften V, pp. 331, 334.
450 e BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

. Betti, pp. 43, 35.

. Ibid., pp. 42, 30.
. Ibid., pp. 20, 13.
. Ibid., pp. 55, 42.
. Cf. ibid., p. 12 and Spranger, pp. 16, 23. Already Dilthey, Schriften V, p. 319.
. Spranger, pp. 16, 20, 23.
. Ibid., p. 28.
. Ibid.
. Ibid., p. 11.
. Dilthey, Schriften V, p. 319.
. Oepke, p. 54.
. SoF. Traub, p. 100.
Cf. Wach, RGG, col. 1570; Torm, p. 3.
That is not even the case in Islam, which in modified form recognizes Old
Testament and New Testament among the “possessors of Scripture.”
. Ricoeur, HThR, p. 26
. With this definition we also take into account the element of the “continually
fixed life utterances.” This element was important to Dilthey (Schriften V, p.
319).

CHAPTER TWo: A Special Biblical Hermeneutic?

1. Cf. Liebing, pp. 307ff.; Harnack, p. 8; Hofmann, p. 1; Lutz, p. 172;
Schleiermacher, p. 22.
N . The Koran does not do this but rather presupposes Old Testament and New
Testament.
So Harnack, p. 8.
Girgensohn, Insp, p. 40.
Droysen, p. 8.
Fascher, p. 28.
Torm, p. 5. Cf. Childs, Introduction, p. 71.
Dilthey, Schriften V, p. 334.
Spranger, pp. 28, 31.
Schmid, p. 11, in summarization of orthodox dogmatics.
CORON
STO
he
0 Cf. the essays from Bring and Holl. Cf. Gadamer, p. 262: the Enlightenment
—

wanted “all authority to be under subjection to reason.”

Fascher, p. 98.
. As Fascher (ibid.) rightly states.
Fascher, p. 95.
. Gadamer, p. 255.
E. g. in Ricoeur, HThR, pp. 27ff.
. Anexample would be Conzelmann-Lindemann, p. 37.
. Girgensohn, Schriftbeweis, pp. 37ff.
. Ibid. p. 43; cf. Girgensohn, Insp, p. 34.
Cf. again Ricoeur, HThR, pp. 27ff.
. So also Beisser, NZSTh, p. 212.
. Liicke, pp. xi, xvii, 7. Cf. Heinrici, p. 723; Keil, p. v.
 ENDNOTES @ 451

. Procksch, CuW, pp. 150f.

= Did ps450.
. Oepke, p. 17. Otherwise Ricoeur, HThR, p. 37: the Bible directs itself not “to
our obedience,” but rather “to our imagination”; this still amounts to an
“appeal.” Cf. Beisser, NZSTh, p. 212.
. Ricoeur, HThR, p. 35.
. Wingren’p.7. *
. Weber, Schriftforschung, p. 185.
. Jung, p. 49.
Bultmann, GV II, p. 232. Baur, among others, anticipates Bultmann at this
point (cf. Liebing, pp. 307f.).
. Schmid, p. 11.
2 Ch, Pret, p52;
. Lessing, Beweis, p. 34. Cf. Dilthey, Schriften V, p. 317.
Thus Dibelius, p. 97, characterizes Christianity.
. Harnack, p. 8.
Cf. on this point Michel, Sehen, pp. 39ff.
Cf. Moldaenke, pp. 14, 126; Gadamer, p. 163; Heinrici, pp. 723, 737;
Hofmann, p. 1; Keil, p. v; Liicke, p. 6; Mussner, Aufgaben, p. 7; Oepke, p. 9.
38. Dobschiitz, pp. 5, 2.

CHAPTER THREE: The Starting Point of Hermeneutics

Scholder, p. 132.
Cf. ibid., p. 133.
Ibid.
Schulz, pp. 34ff., 64.
Cf. Scholder, pp. 73f.
Ibid., p. 90.
Ibid., p. 108.
Ibid., p. 107.
Grant, p. 142. Liicke, p. 41, wants to return to this position!
eh
Se Scholder, p. 106. Strangely, this same interest crops up today in the case of
SONS
eS
some who reject a hermeneutica sacra on biblical grounds.
. Ibid., p. 105. Cf. p. 147.
Schulz, p. 72: Deus est natura (God is nature).
Ibid., p. 67.
Scholder, p. 147.
So a title by John Locke; cf. Frei, p. 327.
Taken up e.g., by D. Hume and Th. Woolston; cf. Frei, p. 328.
Aner cites, among others, Cherbury, Whiston, Shaftesbury, Lyttleton,
Warburton, Tindal, Locke, Doddridge, Baxter, Peirce, Benson, Sykes (pp. 27f.,
166, 208).
. Aner, p. 3.
“combiner la raison et la révélation, sans qu’ elles se contredisent |’une I’autre”;
according to Aner, p. 145.
. According to Aner, p. 200.
452 e BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

5 8Frei,ps55:
. According to Schulz, p. 74.
. Ibid., p. 76.
. Aner, p. 4.
. Ibid., p. 162; cf. p. 158.
. Scholder, p. 90.
. Droysen, p. 11.
. Spranger, p. 28.
. Droysen, p. 9.
. Bultmann, GV I], p. 232; cf. p. 222.
. Fuchs, pp. 119, 134.
. Bultmann, GV II, p. 228.
. Ibid., pp. 215ff.
ibid Sips235:
. See Carson, Hermeneutics, p. 14.
. Gadamer, p. 162.
. Ibid., p. 168.
Carson, Hermeneutics, pp. 14ff. In contrast Stuhlmacher wishes to develop a
“hermeneutic of consent”—a late fruit of Gadamer and Fuchs.
. Ricoeur, HThR, pp. 27, 20.
. Ibid., pp. 31, 34, 37.
. Ibid., p. 37.
. Ibid., p. 30.
. Ibid., pp. 15, 31. He also speaks, however, of a “hermeneutic of testimony”;
cf. HThR, p. 31; Ricoeur, AThR, p. 438.
“scriptura sacra sui ipsius interpres” (Luther WA VII, pp. 97 ff.); cf. Holl, p.
559:
. Moldaenke, p. 12, cites Dilthey, who calls Flacius the “creator of the science
of a Protestant hermeneutic.”
. Cf. Moldaenke, pp. 144f.
. According to Schmid, p. 50.
. Cf. Kramer II, p. 383, on Francke. It is superfluous here to cite specific
passages from Bengel, who likewise held this view.
. Philippi I, p. 86.
. Cf. Troeltsch, pp. 729ff.
. Stuhlmacher attempts this by adding the “principle of hearing” as a fourth
standard next to Troeltsch’s three (Verstehen, pp. 243ff.).
. BELK, p. 777.
_ Cf. Schmid, p. 11.
Cf. here Merk, Anfange, p. 44; Frei, p. 51.
. Courth, pp. 63, 66.
. Barnikol, p. 24; cf. Liebing, pp. 307f., 310; Liicke, p. 36.
. Cf. Esking, p. 104; Egg, p. 63.
. Bultmann, GV II, pp. 226f., 232.
Schulz, p. 46.
. Even Ricoeur falls prey to this danger; HThR, p. 26.
 ENDNOTES @ 453

. Harnack, pp. 8, 12.

. Wellhausen, p. 386.
. Dilthey, Schriften VI, p. 288.
So Gunkel, p. 95; cf. p. 35 and p. 1.
. Gunkel (ibid., p. vi) speaks of “seizure by the Spirit” and the necessary
“separation from the letter.”
. Kahler, Wissenschaft, p. 390; cf. pp. 53f.
. Packer, Battle, p. 52.
. Packer, Fundamentalism, p. 72; cf. Packer, Battle, pp. 42, 95, 117.
. Henry IV, p. 168.
. Ibid., p. 191.
. Succumbing to this danger is e.g., Jenson, p. 237. Cf. also Abraham, pp. 16ff.
. Philippi I, p. 92.
. E.g., Ramm, Interpr, p. 119. Cf. however also Packer, Fundamentalism, pp. 75,
96.
Cf. Schulz, p. 64.
. Cf. Abraham, p. 8.
Liicke, p. 19. Cf. on p. 10 the lament about “the tyrannical force and sole
sovereignty of historical knowledge.”
. Fascher, p. 1.
. Cf. my essay in Gospel Persp 6, p. 75f.
. Kahler, Heilsgewissheit, pp. 53f. Cf. again Fascher, pp. 6, 16ff. Otherwise e.g.,
Liicke, p. 144: we may proceed only “according to the laws of historical
possibility.”

CHAPTER FOUR: Theological Hermeneutics as Science

Cf. Peuckert, p. 69.
Cf. Grant, p. 142.
Girgensohn, Insp, p. 14.
Cf. ibid., p. 34.
Cf. Girgensohn, Schriftbeweis, p. 36.
So however Fascher, p. 6; cf. p. 18.
Cf. Harnack, p. 6.
Kriiger, p. 4; cf. Weinel, p. vi.
5 Harnack, p. 16; cf. p. 8, where he—in contrast to Troeltsch—recognizes the
Eales
Ber
NON
OOS
“entirely singular” in history.
, Ibid. pa 22.
. Cf. Oepke, p. 41. Of interest here is the comparison with the Catholic
“Instructio de historica Evangeliorum veritate” of April 21, 1964 (Fitzmyer,
p. 39).
Spranger, p. 19.
. Blank, pp. 3, 5.
Bultmann, GV II, p. 235. Cf. Klauck, p. 99.
. Cf. here Blank, p. 3; Richter, p. 9.
Contemporary Protestant theology wields “criticism” so dogmatically that it
hinders this necessary self-criticism.
454 e BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

. Spranger, p. 21.
. Blank, p. 6.
. Ricoeur, HThR, p. 37
Dibelius, p. 96. Cf. Harnack, pp. 19ff.
. Wrede, p. 10.
. Cf. Richter, pp. 12, 11.
. Harnack, pp. 8, 19ff.
Ibid., p. 18.
. Blank, pp. 4f. Cf. Mickelsen, p. 44; Lehmann, p. 61.
. Cf. Scholder, pp. 48ff.
. Aner, p. 4.
. Wach, RGG, col. 1571.
. Spranger, p. 6. Cf. pp. 9f., 17.
Ibid., p. 17.
. Gadamer, p. xxii.
Ibid., p. xxi.
. Dinkler, p. 7. Cf. Hesse, AT, p. 20; Jepsen, p. 232. More reservedly Stanton,
pp. 66, 69.
So also Stuhlmacher, Verstehen, pp. 253ff.
. Oepke, p. 41. Cf. p. 12.
. Girgensohn, Insp, p. 15.
. Cf. A. Schlatter’s interaction with P. Jager.
. Cf. Schulz, pp. 92, 86.
. Droysen, pp. 21f.
Ibid.
. Erasmus. Cf. Grant, p. 142.

CHAPTER FIVE: The Interpreter

Cf. Merk, Anfange, pp. 42f.
Cf. Heinrici, p. 737 as well as Merk, Anfange, p. 43; Seeberg, p. 47.
Barr, p. 114.
Ibid., p. 111.
Weber, Schriftforschung, p. 185; likewise Bultmann, GV II, p. 216; F. Traub,
p. 97. For the same view much earlier see Hofmann, p. 23.
Weber, Schriftforschung, p. 185.
“préjugés légitimes”; cf. Gadamer, p. 255.
Dilthey, Schriften V, p. 319.
Spranger, p. 16.
Procksch, CuW, p. 150, for whom however this is not enough. Cf. Dibelius, p.
97.
. F. Traub, p. 100.
Among others Betti, p. 53; Dilthey, Schriften V, p. 332; Dobschiitz, pp. 50, 28;
Droysen, p. 9; Heinrici, p. 720; Keil, p. x; Torm,p.13; Wach, RGG, col. 1573.
. So Dilthey, Schriften V, p. 318.
. So Weinel, p. v.
. So Droysen, p. 10.
 ENDNOTES @ 455

. So F. Traub, p. 100; cf. Keil, p. x.

. So Heinrici, p. 720.
. So Dobschiitz, p. 51.
So Wach, RGG, col. 1573; Torm, p. 13.
. So Bultman, GV II, p. 217. Cf. a certain parallel in Ricoeur, HThR, p. 30.
: Dobschiitz, p. 28.,
. Cf. Dilthey, Schriften V, p. 330, and Torm, p. 2.
. Dilthey, Schriften V, p. 330.
=i. p. S32.
. Cf. the role that “intellectual breadth” (capacity) plays in Spranger (p. 16)!
Cited in Heinrici, p. 720.
. Droysen, p. 22.
. Treitschke, cited in Heinrici, p. 720.
. Philippi I, p. 214; cf. p. 215.
Ibid., p. 199; cf. p. 111.
. Here see Stuhlmacher, Verstehen, pp. 135ff., 238ff. He decisively rejects such
a theology.
. Grant, p. 36.
. De princ I, praef 3, according to Campenhausen, p. 359.
. On Calvin cf. Palmer, p. 35; Grant, p. 134.
. Holl, p. 547, n. 4, from WA 4, p. 305. Cf. Holl, pp. 547ff.; Bring, p. 16; Torm,
p. 16; Procksch, AT, p. 36; Grant, p. 132; Scheel, p. 36.
. Cf. Reinhard, p. 17. On Flacius cf. Moldaenke, pp. 486ff.
Reinhard, pp. 52f.
. Ibid., p. 85.
Francke’s own statement from 1692 according to Kramer I, p. 5.
Francke according to Kramer II, p. 388.
. Ibid.
. Ibid., pp. 389, 392.
. Cf. Heinrici, p. 736; Kramer II, p. 394.
.Cf. Frei, p. 38; Heinrici, pp. 736f.
. Liicke, pp. vff.
. Ibid., pp. vii, ix.
. Ibid., p. 46.
. Ibid.
. Cf. Lutz, p. 84; Philippi I, pp. 86, 214f., 226f.
Kahler, Wissenschaft, p. 35; cf. Esking, p. 37.
. Weber, Schriftforschung, p. 186.
Seeberg, p. 44; Beisser, NZSTh, p. 213.
. Examples: Packer, Fundamentalism, p. 111; Ramm, Interpr, pp. 12f.
. Cf. Girgensohn, Insp, pp. 6f.; Procksch, CuW, pp. 145, 150f.; Frey, Ansatz,
pp. 161, 167ff.
. Cf. Fitzmyer, p. 37.
So Stuhlmacher, Verstehen, pp. 135ff., 221, 238ff.
. Cf. Holl, p. 559.
456 e BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

58. Cf. my essay Heiliger Geist und Schriftauslegung (Holy Spirit and Biblical
Interpretation) (Wuppertal, 1983), p. 22; also Bring, pp. 14ff.
Calvin, Inst. I, 3, 2.
Ibid. I, 3, 3; 4, 4.
Abid ES 43:
. Cf. Heinrici, p. 734.
. Cf. Reinhard, pp. 17, 20.
Cf. ibid., p. 16.
. Lutz, p. 93; similarly Fascher, p. 23.
. Cf. Philippi I, p. 227; Hofmann, p. 30; Fascher, p. 23.
. Cf. Bring, pp. 15f. Cf. also Procksch, CuW, p. 151; Torm, p. 14; F. Traub, p.
100; Seeberg, pp. 43f.; Vogtle, Auslegung, p. 29.
. Spranger, pp. 17, 21.
. Barnikol, p. 10.
. Jepsen, pp. 227f.
. Dibelius, p. 97.
. Dobschiitz, p. 64; cf. pp. 28, 62.
. Girgensohn, Schriftbeweis, p. 65.
. Ibid. p. 69.
. Inst I, 7, 5. Cf. the entire context of Inst I, 2-8.
. Reinhard, p. 52.
. Ibid.
. Cf. Hofmann, p. 101. Cf. on the same point Hollaz in Reinhard, p. 17; also
Luther according to Holl, p. 555.
. Hoffmann, p. 101.
Kahler, Wissenschaft, p. 390.
. Girgensohn, Schriftbeweis, p. 63.
Ibid., p. 72.
. Torm, p. 22.
Cf. e.g., regarding Bengel my Joh-Offb, pp. 422f.; also Lutz, pp. 84f.
. Stuhlmacher, Verstehen, p. 136. Similarly Fascher, p. 26.
E.g., Fuchs falls prey to this misunderstanding: “Theological interpretation is
existential to the extent it is scientific, i.e., proceeds methodically” (p. 134).
Prick, p22.
. Ricoeur, HThR, p. 30.
. Ibid.
Likewise e.g., Stadelmann emphasizes the “encounter” factor; on p. 121 he
even speaks of a “hermeneutic of encounter.” Cf. already Schrenk, p. 7.
. But Hafenreffer in his Loci already called the Holy Scriptures “epistolae de
patria aeterna nobis transmissae” (Elert, Morphologie, pp. 157, 2).
. Cf. my Joh-Offb, pp. 345, 414f.
~ /Ocepke, p. 17.
. Cf. Oepke’s view in contrast to that of F. Traub, p. 27.
. Stanton, p. 65.
. Stadelmann, p. 121.
 ENDNOTES @ 457

. Contra Conzelmann-Lindemann, p. 37, and already Reimarus (Wilckens, p.

98).
. Ricoeur, HThR, p. 37.
. Ibid.
. Girgensohn, Insp, p. 18.
. Girgensohn, Schriftbeweis, p. 63 (citing Bengel). Representing a similar view
have been Frey, Ansatz (p. 170); Packer, Battle (pp. 11, 13f.); and Ramm,
Interpr (p. 87); as well as Vogtle, Auslegung (p. 50).
. Elert, Glaube, p. 194.
. Statements like “we cannot revert to the time before the Enlightenment” are
foolish. For factually everyone who takes the Bible seriously reverts “to the
time before the Enlightenment”—and this was as true at the time of the
Enlightenment as it is today!
Barmen Declaration of 1934, first thesis, according to Steubing, p. 300.
. Cf. my Joh-Offb, p. 418; Reinhard, pp. 61ff., 65.
Philosophically parallel is the plea of e.g., Gadamer for a new, favorable
assessment of “tradition” (pp. 265f.).
. Marshall, Criticism, p. 134; similarly Girgensohn, Insp, p. 28.
. Luther puts it more strongly: “Scripturas sacras sciat se nemo gustasse satis,
nisi centum annis cum Prophetis Ecclesias gubernarit” (“Let no one suppose
he has fed enough on Scripture who has not led the church for a century using
the prophets’’); on this point cf. Torm, p. 24. In any case our position is not the
same as that of the so-called Erlangen theology, in which Christian experience
played a more dominant role (see e.g., Hofmann, p. 100, among many passages
that could be cited).
109. Fascher (pp. 108, 132) also uses the term transsubjective.
110. Hofmann, p. 30.
1th: Ibid., p. 100.
Liz. On the “principle of effect in history“ (Wirkungsgeschichte) cf. Gadamer, pp.
284ff. Cf. also Seeberg, p. 9.
113. Mussner, p. 21.
114. Ibid.
115; Fitzmyer, p. 37.
116. Ibid., pp. 39, 37, 51. Cf. p. 47 and Gnilka, p. 460.
TUT: Vogtle, Auslegung, p. 60.
118. Diem, p. 43.
Lo: Ibid.
120. Cf. Kramer I], p. 396.
BAF Dobschiitz, p. 64. Cf. Frey, Ansatz, pp. 177f.; Ramm, Interpr, pp. 88f.
122; E. g. in Wrede, pp. 15, 47. Cf. also Jepsen, p. 227 (regarding Wellhausen);
Kriiger, p. 8.
123. Liicke, p. 41.
124. Cf. on this point Stadelmann, pp. 78ff.
125" Cf. my Joh-Offb, p. 423.
458 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

CHAPTER SIX: Ways of Understanding Revelation

. Gunkel, pp. 10f.; Wilckens, p. 133.
. Torm, p. 37. Cf. the long list of predecessors that Karl August Gottlieb Keil
looked back on in 1810.
. Cf. Ricoeur, HThR, p. 30.
. Keil, pp. 7f.
Cf. Schleiermacher, p. 21.
Keil, p. 8.
Dilthey, Schriften V, p. 322.
Cf. Heinrici, p. 738.
Cf. Torm, p. 29.
Wilckens, p. 133.
. Theodosius Harnack according to Gennrich, p. 87.
Cf. Gennrich, p. 60; Oepke, pp. 53f. A similar view was expressed in Protestant
Scholasticism; cf. Preus, pp. 164ff.
. Philippi I, p. 224, cf. pp. 222ff.; similarly Lutz, p. 83: “Every now and then it
happens that farmers and young girls know how to interpret the Scripture better
than all the scholarly commentaries.”
Cf. Kramer I, p. 56.
. Spranger, p. 16.
Cf. Barr, p. 84.
. Barr, p. 108.
. Mussner, Aufgaben, p. 25.
Bring, p. 40.
Oepke, p. 27.
. Westermann, p. 20.
ORM ph22:
. Egger, pp. 20ff.; Lehmann, p. 67. Cf. Frankemdlle, p. 155; Mussner, p. 27;
Vogtle, Auslegung, p. 36.
. Cf. Pius XII, p. 35.
. Longenecker, p. 28.
Ibid., pp. 29ff. Cf. Grant, p. 40.
. Cf. Longenecker, pp. 67ff.; Doeve, pp. 91ff,. 206; Grant, pp. 24ff.
. Longenecker, p. 39, according to W. H. Brownlee.
. Cf. Grant, pp. 31, 54f.; Longenecker, p. 126.
Grant, p. 65. Cf. Campenhausen, p. 109.
. Cf. Grant, p. 62.
. Ibid., pp. 70ff.; Jaschke, p. 346. Tertullian was also careful (Campenhausen “A

pp. 328ff.).
. Grant, pp. 79f., 81ff.
Cf. Dinkler, p. 12; Grant, pp. 84f.; Campenhausen, p. 361; Heinrici, p. 730.
. Cf. my Joh-Offb, pp. 87ff. and Grant, p. 89.
Grant, p. 93.
. Ibid., p. 97.
. Ibid., p. 98.
_ Cf. my Joh-Offb, pp. 112ff.
 ENDNOTES ® 459

40. Cf. Vogels, p. 79.

41. According to Vogels, p. 80, this conception of Augustine’s contrasts to that of
other church fathers. Cf. further Grant, pp. 109ff.
. Cf. Heinrici, p. 734; Grant, p. 119; Dinkler, p. 13; Hofmann, pp. 15f.
. Cf. the example involving Jerusalem (see Dinkler and Grant in previous note).
Jerusalem is #1) the capital of Palestine (historical), #2) the church (dogmatic),
#3) an ordered political commonwealth (ethical), and #4) eternal life
(eschatological).
Cf. Grant, pp. 116ff. E.g., Thomas Aquinas emphasized the literal sense (p.
122).
. Bring, pp. 9f. Cf. Kropatscheck, pp. 446ff.
. According to Heinrici, p. 734.
. Scheel, p. 38. Cf. Grant, p. 132.
. According to Torm, p. 24. Cf. Grant, p. 132.
. Cf. here Holl, p. 551 and WA 10, p. 169.
. Scheel, p. 38.
. Holl, p. 548.
Ibid., p. 553. Cf. Grant, pp. 129ff.
. Cf. on this point Grant, p. 128.
Cf. Abrey, p. 199 on Michael Meckel.
Cf. Mac Lean, pp. 158ff. and my Joh-Offb, pp. 216f.
Cf. Séguenny, pp. 167ff. and my Joh-Offb, p. 217.
. Heinrici, p. 735.
. Moldaenke, p. 248.
. Ibid., pp. 241f., 215, 9.
. On these concepts cf. Frei, p. 1.
. Schmid, pp. 45ff.
. Cf. Frei, p. 38.
. Cf. my Joh-Offb, p. 325.
. Ibid., p. 424.
. Ibid., pp. 460ff.
. Frei, pp. 6f.
Grant, pp. 146ff.
. Ibid., p. 154.
Nevertheless Schleiermacher defended allegorical interpretation
(Schleiermacher, p. 21). Interestingly, Hofmann rejected it (pp. 11ff.).
. Lutz, pp. 156ff.
. Girgensohn, Insp, p. 9.
. Ibid.
. Cf. the concept of a “graduated approach” (Stufengang) in Girgensohn, Insp,
pal
Cr here Girgensohn, Insp, pp. 6, 8, 22f., 27; Girgensohn, Schriftbeweis, pp.
63, 73; Oepke, pp. 17, 36; Procksch, AT, p. 36; Schrenk, p. 7; Frey, Ansatz, p.
169. Cf. also Weber, Schriftforschung, p. 48.
12: Girgensohn, Insp, pp. 46ff.
76. Cf. also Oepke, p. 43.
460 e BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

tds Pius XII, p. 35.

78. Vogtle, Auslegung, p. 49, with Schlier. Cf. the first hermeneutical canon in
Betti, p. 14.
ag. Cf. here G. Schrenk, Studien zu Paulus, AThANT, 28, 1955, pp. 107ff.
80. Ibid., p. 125.
81. Long ago Flacius endorsed a primal knowledge possessed by man which can
detect divine revelation (cf. Moldaenke, p. 190). We differ from Flacius,
however, in placing the accent on the use God makes of man’s knowledge
rather than on that which lies within human competence.
Betti, p. 19.
. Torm, pp. 208ff.
Martin, pp. 220ff. Sanders’ (pp. 159ff.) suggestions suffer from lack of
systematic clarity.
. According to Le Brun, p. 106.
Spranger, p. 18.
. Cf. Gennrich, pp. 35f.
. Lutz, pp. 72ff.
. Weber, Schriftforschung, p. 35; similarly Diem, p. 38.
Beisser, NZSTh, p. 192. A reconciliation of the two disciplines will not come
about as easily as Stuhlmacher, who calls for discussion between them, appears
to expect (Verstehen, p. 252). Cf. already the lament by Liicke, pp. 45f.
. Examples include e.g., Clévenot, Gallas, Hauff (pp. 83ff.).
. Cf. already Philippi I, pp. 87ff.
. Cf. Ro 5:14; Ps 95:7ff.; Heb 3:7ff.; 1Pe 2:21. See also Grant, pp. 43, 54f.
Cf. once more Longenecker’s investigation as well as the commentaries at the
verses cited and Goppelt, Typos, passim.
. Cf. Wolff, p. 162.
. Aner, pp. 155, 152.
. Cf. my Joh-Offb, p. 450.
. Cf. J. Jeremias, Die Gleichnisse Jesu, 6th ed. (Gottingen, 1962), pp. 87f.
. Cf. especially Longenecker, pp. 37, 28.
. Cf. D. Flusser, Die rabbinischen Gleichnisse und der Gleichniserzdhler Jesus,
pt. 1 (Bern/Frankfurt/Las Vegas, 1981), pp. 119ff.
. So also Girgensohn, Insp, p. 46.
. Eg., Da 2:36ff.; 4:3ff.; 7:16ff.; 8:15ff.; Zec 1:9ff.; 2:4; 4:11ff.
. Cf. Longenecker, p. 39.
. Cf. my investigation of Revelation, esp. p. 372 (Petersen), p. 422 (Bengel), p.
492 (Delitzsch), pp. 494ff. (Auberlen).
. Cf. my Joh-Offb, p. 431.
. Cf. L. Goppelt, “Heilsoffenbarung und Geschichte nach der Offenbarung des
Johannes,” ThLZ 77 (1952): 513ff.
4
. Cf. my Joh-Offb, p. 206.
. Cf. Frankemille, p. 155. Here we part company with the strict separation that
e.g., Wrede (p. 8) demanded between New Testament exegesis and dogmatics.
 ENDNOTES @ 461

CHAPTER SEVEN: The Inspiration of Scripture

Girgensohn, Insp, p. 3.
Gennrich, pp. 88f. Cf. Gunkel, p. 5; Girgensohn, Insp, p. 4.
Merk, Anfange, p. 41.
Ibid., p. 44.
Ibid., p. 49. ?
Aner, p. 175.
Schleiermacher, pp. 22ff.; Gennrich, pp. 29ff.
Aner, p. 222; cf. pp. 220ff.
Cf. Gennrich, p. 23.
Gennrich, pp. 44ff., SOff.
. Ibid., pp. 44ff.
. Ibid., pp. SOff.
. Ibid., pp. 75ff.
Similarly Schleiermacher; cf. Gennrich, pp. 30f.
. Gennrich, p. 87.
According to Gennrich, p. 105.
. Ibid., p. 111.
. Ibid., pp. 117f.
Ibid., p. 113.
. Wrede, p. 8.
. Ibid., p. 9.
. Ibid., p. 8.
. Funk, pp. 9ff.
. E.g. B. Lang, Ein Buch wie kein anderes (Kevelaer/Stuttgart, 1980), pp. 213ff.
, Etick, p..5.
Elert, Glaube, pp. 169, 171.
. Joest, Kanon, p. 184.
. Dinkler, p. 16.
So Schmidt, Kreuzverh6r, p. 50.
. Finlayson, p. 221.
. E. g. Gennrich, p. 80.
. The “Gnadauer Verband” is the major pietistic body within the German state
church.
. Des Herrn Wort, p. 177.
Cf. Philippi I, pp. 183ff. On Gaussen cf. Gennrich, pp. 41ff.
. E.g. W. Schmidt (1869): the Protestant Scholastic doctrine was present among
the Reformers “only in an incomplete, raw form” (p. 5).
Pius XII, p. 7.
Ibid., pp. 33, 43, 45.
. Fitzmyer, p. 45: “mentes quoque sanctorum . . . gubernans et regens”
(“governing and leading also the understanding of the saints”).
. Ibid., p. 47.
E. g. Stuhlmacher, Verstehen, pp. 47ff.; Childs, Theology, p. 103.
. This is all the more true in light of recent declarations from evangelicals in the
462 e BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

German-speaking sphere. See e.g., Stadelmann, pp. 14ff.; Schnabel, pp. 103ff.;
Sierszyn, pp. 39f.
42. Cf. here Seeberg, pp. 16f.
43. This is the locus classicus of the doctrine of inspiration. From here, and from
the Latin translation “inspirata,” comes the concept of “inspired” Scripture.
Stuhlmacher, Verstehen: “Every Scripture [passage] is filled with God’s
Spirit” (p. 54); Jeremias: “Every Scripture passage originates in God’s Spirit”
(p. 44); Holtz: “Every Bible passage is given [to the human writer] by God’s
Spirit” (p. 183). Tholuck and Wilhelm Schmidt (1869) are advocates of a
restrictive translation: “If this or that Scripture or Scripture passage is breathed
out from God, then it is also useful . . .” (Schmidt, p. 39). Similarly Schrenk,
1869, pp. 28f.
. Cf. Schmid, p. 26; Preus, pp. 36f.
. Justin would emphasize this some years later (Chmiel, p. 161).
. For W. Schmidt (1869) is Jn 10:35 merely a view of Jesus’ opponents (p. 40);
according to Abraham, p. 98, Jesus speaks only ad hominem. Both these views
evade the obvious.
. Cf. Leiman, pp. 19ff.
. Cf. Ramm, Rev, pp. 164ff.
. See here ibid., Rev, pp. 166, 176.
. Cf. once more ibid., Rev, p. 165.
A list of passages is impossible due to their large number. Examples are 1Sa
10: 10ff.; Jer 1:4ff.; Eze 2:2; Da 4:6.
. Longenecker, pp. 19, 48.
Likewise Pedersen, p. 96.
. Itis not insignificant that 1Co 2:10 was a key text for the doctrine of inspiration
among dogmaticians of past eras; cf. Schmid, p. 26.
Cf. Sneen, p. 40.
. Likewise Pedersen, pp. 94ff.
. Cf. the discussion in Du Plessis, p. 269; Kiirzinger, p. 254; Mussner, FS, pp.
254f.; Sneen, p. 41.
. Cf. Du Plessis, pp. 270f.; Schadewalt, p. 223; Sneen, p. 42.
Du Plessis, pp. 270f. Similarly Sneen, p. 40.
. Cf. Du Plessis, pp. 262f., 268; Sneen, pp. 40f.; Kiirzinger, p. 254.
. Cf. my investigation along these lines in D. Wenham, ed., Gospel Perspectives,
vol. 6 (Sheffield, 1985), pp. 85-128.
. Regarding eyewitness status see 1Pe 5:1; 2Pe 1:16ff. James and Jude qualify
by virture of being the Lord’s brothers (cf. Jude 1).
Stibbs, p. 116.
. Sundberg, p. 352.
. W. Schmidt, 1869, p. 48.
. According to Gennrich, p. 53.
. Stuhlmacher, Verstehen, p. 57.
. Cf. Schleiermacher, pp. 23f.; Gennrich, pp. 30f.; Mussner, Del.
. Schleiermacher, p. 24.
. Gennrich, p. 31.
 ENDNOTES @ 463

. According to Gennrich, p. 54.

. Cf. Weber, Schriftforschung, p. 3 with p. 7; Girgensohn, Insp, p. 57 with p. 64;
Abraham, pp. 32ff.; Stuhlmacher, Verstehen, pp. 47ff.; Schrenk, p. 33.
. Abraham, p. 63.
. See “The Answer of Revelation” above, pp. 101-108.
. Ch Schmid, p. 24.
. Chmiel, p. 160.
. According to Campenhausen, p. 364.
Moldaenke, pp. 300, 314. On Protestant Scholasticism cf. Preus, p. 33.
Beck, Leitfaden, p. 7.
. Fitzmyer, p. 45.
. Gennrich, p. 19.
. Cf. Funk, p. 14.
Ricoeur, AThR, p. 454.
. Ricoeur, HThR, p. 17.
. Ibid., p. 18.
. Gennrich, p. 19.
5 SCE) Preus)p. 36:
. Ibid. p. 35. Cf. p. 47 regarding Jesuits.
. Ibid., p. 45.
. Aner, p. 220.
E. Bloch, Werkausgabe, vol. 5, 1st ed., 1985, p. 1113.
. Cf. Gennrich, pp. 50ff. and pp. 28ff. Girgensohn, Insp, p. 56, heads in the same
direction.
. Gennrich, p. 34.
. Ibid., pp. 44ff.
. Lutz, p. 94.
. According to Gennrich, pp. 95ff. Similarly W. Schmidt, 1869 (“the didactic
and historical” are not inspired); Weber, Schriftforschung, pp. 7ff.;
Girgensohn, Insp, p. 64 (only the “pneumatic” is inspired).
. Cf. Vogels, p. 66. For Protestant Scholasticism see Schmid, p. 24.
The earlier view is still detectable in Mosheim (Reinhard, pp. 86ff.).
Here 2Ti 3:16 was translated restrictively (Tholuck, W. Schmidt, Schrenk):
“Every Scripture that is inspired . . .”, not “All Scripture is inspired.”
. Gennrich raises this question on pp. 94f.
. Cf. Philippi’s criticism, I, p. 182.
. In view of Mt 5:17f. Grant speaks of “a rigorous doctrine of scripture.” The
toning down of this passage to which e.g., W. Schmidt, 1869, pp. 40f., resorts
in order to justify his rejection of verbal inspiration does not sound very
convincing. Schmidt suggests that Mt 5:18 applies only to the law and that Jn
10:35 is only a principle held by Jesus’ opponents.
Campenhausen, p. 35; cf. pp. 33ff.
. Ibid., p. 81.
. Cf. the investigation by Chmiel.
. Campenhausen, pp. 121ff., 320ff. (Tertullian shows “acceptance of a formal
inspiration,” p. 324.) Cf. Grant, pp. 7Off.
464 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

108. Campenhausen, p. 354. Cf. Grant, pp. 81ff. Origen worked this out most of all
in De principiis, IV.
109. Campenhausen, pp. 355, 362, 364, 367, 370.
110. Vogels, p. 72.
itt. The quote is from Epist 82, 3, 24. Cf. Vogels, pp. 72ff., 53f.
Viz: Vogels, pp. 65f.
13; Ibid., pp. 69f.
114. Tract in Joann 30, 1; Serm 85, 1,1. Cf. Vogels, p. 69.
£25. Kropatscheck, p. 425.
116. Ibid.
Myf Ibid., pp. 439f. Cf. however the very much more differentiated presentation by
Oberman, pp. 335ff. Regarding Biel’s stress on the authority of Scripture see
Oberman, p. 365. Cf. however also Grant, pp. 122ff.
118. Bring, p. 23. Likewise Grant, p. 135.
F19. Scheel, p. 69. Lotz makes a similar judgment (p. 267).
120. Cf. Scheel, pp. 76f.
121, Cf. Palmer, pp. 31ff.; Childs, Introduction, p. 44.
22. Moldaenke, p. 300. Cf. also Augustine, DCD XX, 1; XVIII, 43; En in ps 144;
Serm 85,1,1. When Moldaenke, pp. 300, 303, opines that according to Flacius
it is not the Scriptures but only their authors that are inspired, he is refuted by
Flacius himself.
123; Cf. Schmid, pp. 20ff.
124. So Hollaz (Schmid, p. 25); cf. Quenstedt, according to Preus, p. 35.
E25. Cf. Schmid, p. 25; Preus, p. 40; Philippi I, p. 183.
126. Schmid, p. 20. Cf. Preus, p. 53 (Schréder); Reinhard, p. 7.
127. Preus, p. 27 (Quenstedt); cf. Reinhard, p. 7 (Hollaz).
128. Cf. Schrenk, p. 9; Girgensohn, Insp, p. 3.
129: Cf. recently Stadelmann, pp. 14ff.; Schnabel, pp. 160ff. Cf. also Schrenk, p.
26; StuhIlmacher, Verstehen, pp. 30ff. On Catholic doctrine cf. the dogmatic
constitution on divine revelation produced during Vatican II (excerpts in Ott,
pp. 42f.).
130. Ott, p. 46.
Ish Ibid.
132, Cf. here Gennrich, p. 46 (regarding Beck, Lange, Stier) as well as Girgensohn,
Insp, p. 25 (regarding Hamann) and Frey, Ansatz, p. 157.
133. So Hofmann, p. 19.
134. Thus e.g., Schrenk, pp. 33ff.; Abraham, p. 56; Gollwitzer, pp. 16f.; W.
Schmidt, 1869, pp. 35ff.
153; Hofmann, pp. 23, 30, 75ff. Similarly Beck (Gennrich, p. 56).
136. Girgensohn, Insp, p. 3.
137, Seeberg, p. 22.
138. Girgensohn, Grundriss, pp. 61ff. Cf. Schrenk, p. 36.
139. Moldaenke, pp. 377f. '
140. Cf. Preus, pp. 35f. Schrenk (p. 35) therefore flails at empty space.
141. Cf. Preus, pp. 60ff.; Schmid, p. 26.
142. Cf. my Joh Offb, pp. 416f. Philippi takes the same tack (I, pp. 167ff.).
 ENDNOTES @ 465

143. So however Schrenk, pp. 30f.

144. Schrenk, pp. 30f., makes this claim.
145. Abraham, pp. 27f.
146. Gollwitzer, p. 15. Likewise Abraham, p. 40.
147. Gollwitzer, p. 15. Cf. Abraham, p. 56; Schrenk, pp. 5ff.; Gennrich, p. 18;
Weber, Schriftforschung, p. 3; Lutz, p. 85.
148. Cf. Genntich, pp. 30f.
149. According to Gennrich, p. 31. Gennrich called this “the word of solution,” a
“knowledge of the truth given to us by God” (pp. 28f.). Arguing similarly are
e.g., Abraham (p. 32) and Schrenk (p. 35).
150. Thus e.g., Zéckler, according to Gennrich, p. 105; also Stuhlmacher,
Verstehen, pp. 238ff.; Gollwitzer, pp. 11ff.; the Chicago school (Harper,
Mathews, and others) according to Funk, pp. 11ff. Cf. also Frick, pp. 4f.
151. Cf. the idea of “in step with the times” in Stuhlmacher, Verstehen, p. 222.
152. Abraham, p. 91.
153. So e.g., Gollwitzer, pp. 16f.; Schrenk, pp. 34f.; W. Schmidt, 1869, pp. 35f.;
Stuhlmacher, Verstehen, p. 240; Keil, p. 108.
154. Cf. Seeberg, p. 15; W. Schmidt, 1869, p. 72; Keil, p. 134. Cf. much earlier
Erasmus, according to Holl, p. 552.
155: Agreeing on this point are Lutz, p. 88; Philippi I, p. 183; Girgensohn,
Grundriss, p. 65; Hofmann, p. 24; Ramm, Interpr, p. 85; Packer,
Fundamentalism, pp. 78, 113f.; Henry IV, pp. 129ff.; Geisler, Decide, pp.
69ff.; Ladd, p. 32; Stibbs, pp. 107ff.; Mickelsen, pp. 91ff.; Beck, Leitfaden, pp.
7ff.; Stadelmann, pp. 62ff.; Pius XII, p. 59; Finlayson, p. 234. Much earlier
advocates of the same view include Protestant Scholasticism and Pietism,
notably Bengel (cf. my Joh-Offb, pp. 414ff.).
. E.g., Jeremias, p. 44; StuhImacher, Verstehen, p. 54; Schrenk, ThWNT I, p.
753 (English edition: TDNT, p. 754).
. E.g., Holtz, p. 183.
. The New Jerusalem Bible’s translation is interesting: while it translates
restrictively in the text (“Every Scripture given by God’), in the apparatus it
states, “Literally: Every Scripture is given by God.”
. Schlatter, Erlauterungen, on 2Ti 3:16.
. Cf. Origen, de princ IV, 2,2 and Campenhausen, pp. 354ff.
. Among others: Geisler, Decide, p. 71; Henry IV, p. 160; Ramm, Interpr, p. 86;
Warfield, Inspiration and Authority, p. 113.
. E.g., Gaussen (cf. Gennrich, pp. 41ff.).
. Preus, p. 33.
So e.g., Hofmann, p. 34.
. Cf. my Joh-Offb, p. 420f.
. Des Herrn Wort, p. 177.
. Cf. Grant, p. 145.
»oSemiler E'p.75:
. Keil, p. 134.
. Kahler, Wissenschaft, p. 390.
. Ibid.
466 e@ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

E72: Ibid.
173: Ibid.
174. Weber, Schriftforschung, pp. 8f.; prior to Kahler there were similar thoughts
in Lutz, p. 94.
175. F, Traub, p. 110.
176. Ibid.
77. Ibid., p. 102; similarly once more Lutz, p. 94.
178. Further examples in Gennrich, p. 129; Joest, Kanon, p. 181; Fascher, pp. 29f.;
Seeberg, p. 15; W. Schmidt, 1869, p. 72; Procksch, AT, p. 17; Gunkel, p. 15;
Diem, p. 38; Mussner, Aufgaben, p. 27; Dinkler, p. 31. Cf. Geisler, Decide,
pp. 57ff.; Geisler, Errancy, p. 233.
179: Cf. Scheel, pp. 20f., 69f.; Lutz, pp. 263ff.
180. Cf. Preus, p. 16.
181. Cf. my Joh-Offb, pp. 414ff.
182. Thus e.g., Hofmann, p. 82; but also orthodox Lutheranism, e.g., Philippi I, p.
93.
183. Barth, KD I, 2, p. 512.
184. Ibid.
185. Ibid., pp. 512f.
186. Barth, Das Wort Gottes und die Theologie, 1922, p. 20. Cf. on this Esking, p.
67.
187. E.g., Diem, p. 4.
188. Cf. Fascher, p. 42; Dinkler, p. 32.
189. Cf. Joest, Kanon, p. 183.
190. E.g., Stuhlmacher, Verstehen, pp. 49, 175ff.
191. Harnack, p. 15.
192. Cf. Barth’s foreword to his Rémerbrief: we must peer through into the “Spirit”
of the Bible.
193; Schmidt, 1869, p. 50. Cf. also pp. 60, 71.
194. According to Grant, p. 145.
195. Girgensohn, Grundriss, p. 65; Insp, p. 56.
196. Schrenk, p. 37.
197: Esking, p. 72; F. Traub, p. 49. Cf. my Joh-Offb, pp. 553f., as well as Fascher,
p. 34; Geisler, Decide, p. 89; Geisler, Errancy, p. 232; Ridderbos, pp. Sff.;
Finlayson, pp. 225, 230.
198. F. Traub, p. 102.
199. Cf. on Luther, Lotz, p. 263. On Flacius cf. Moldaenke, pp. 55, 286. On
Protestant orthodoxy (Gerhard) cf. Preus, p. 14.
200. Cf. Schrenk, pp. 30f.
201. Thus rightly Finlayson, p. 223.
202. Acute awareness of the difficulties is present e.g., in Bengel (cf. my Joh-Offb,
pp. 413ff.), as well as in Philippi (I, p. 198), who wished to teach “inspiration
of word” (“Wortinspiration”) rather than “inspiration of words”
(“Worterinspiration’’).
203. Cf. Bengel to Jeremias Friedrich Reuss, as Bengel compared Bible word to
bread: “don’t bother yourself whether you find a grain of sand mixed in here
 ENDNOTES @ 467

and there with the fine meal” (cf. my Joh-Offb, p. 414). Cf. Hofmann, p. 34;
Ramm, Rev, p. 177.
204. Bengel, Gnomon, Praef, §14.
205. Cf. Chmiel, pp. 158f.
206. Cf. Campenhausen, p. 323.
207. Origen, De prince [V,2,2.
208. Contra Adimant c. 11: “Spiritus Sanctus . . . his etiam verbis uti voluit” (“The
Holy Spirit also wanted to use these words’) (according to Vogels, p. 72).
209. Cf. Grant, p. 122.
210. Cf. Scheel, pp. 68ff.
211, According to Moldaenke, p. 293; cf. p. 230. On Protestant Scholasticism see
Preus, p. 53.
eA Pas Cf. my Joh-Offb, p. 416.
213: E.g., Spener and Bengel (Joh-Offb, pp. 345, 414).
214. Cf. Beck, Leitfaden, p. 9; Procksch, AT, p. 17; Henry IV, pp. 129, 159.
215. Sasse, p. 305.
216. Barr, p. 27 (“a product of the church”); cf. pp. 2ff.
27. Sundberg, p. 364. Stadelmann (pp. 17ff.) lists German representatives of this
outlook.
218. Likewise Stadelmann (pp. 17ff.); Girgensohn, Grundriss, p. 65.
29: Ramm states it this way: “Inspiration is infallible, but not illumination”
(Interpr, p. 14).
220. Cf. Preus, pp. 27f. Philippi I, p. 151, speaks similarly of a “specific dignity”;
cf. Preus, pp. 99f.
221. Thus e.g., Stuhlmacher, Verstehen, pp. 55ff.
222. Chmiel, pp. 159, 16.
223. Ibid., p. 160.
224. Campenhausen, p. 366.
ZZ: Cf. Vogels, pp. 72ff.
226. Kropatscheck, p. 427.
oni. According to Preus, pp. 57ff.
228. Cf. Burkhardt, pp. 221ff.
229. Cf. his remarks in Contra Ap I, 37-43. German translations in Koole, pp. 226f.;
R. Meyer, pp. 285f.
230. Otherwise Stuhlmacher, Verstehen, pp. 55f.
PEAY Cf. Scheel, p. 68; Kropatscheck, p. 428.
232. Pius XII, p. 39. Warfield, Inspiration and Authority, p. 119: “media.”
Regarding Protestant Scholasticism see Preus, p. 54. On Bengel see my Joh-
Offb, pp. 416ff.
233. Clearly visible in the dogmatics of Gottlieb Christian Storr (1793), which
attempts to grant “complete latitude to the individual intellectual activity of the
writers of sacred scripture” (according to Gennrich, pp. 20f.).
234. Le Brun, p. 114.
pRe Childs, Introduction, p. 80.
236. This thought is present in Flacius (Moldaencke, p. 484), also later e.g., in W.
Schmidt, 1869, p. 56.
468 e BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

23). Philippi I, p. 205. Cf. Pius XII, p. 39; Preus, pp. 69ff.
238. Cf. Vogels, pp. 73ff. On Calvin cf. Palmer, p. 35.
239, Protestant Scholastics saw this (Preus, p. 66ff.; Reinhard, p. 55).
. Again already realized by Augustine (Vogels, p. 76).
. Cf. my Joh-Offb, pp. 416f. This is denied by Henry IV, p. 160.
. Cf. my Joh-Offb, pp. 416f.
. Augustine is clearer on this point than Bengel.
On Augustine cf. Vogels, pp. 69f., 76; on Bengel cf. my Joh-Offb, pp. 417f.
. Flacius made the same observation (Moldaenke, p. 298).
. Protestant Scholasticism devoted attention to the problematic of this; cf. Preus,
pp. 29ff.
. Beck, Leitfaden, p. 8.
. Itis likely that Protestant Scholasticism sensed this as well; cf. Preus, p. 54.
. Girgensohn, Grundriss, p. 63.
. Ibid., pp. 63, 65; Girgensohn, Insp, p. 64.
. Girgensohn, Grundriss, p. 63.
. Cf. Marshall, Insp, pp. 40ff. with Packer, Fundamentalism, passim.
. Marshall, Insp, p. 42.
. Both citations from Vogels, p. 79.
. Moldaenke, pp. 270, 484.
. Similarly e.g., Frey, Ansatz, p. 157; Philippi I, pp. 166, 173, 215; Stibbs, p. 111
(calling attention to Jn 11:50); Asmussen, p. 25.
. Cf. Gennrich, p. 18; Esking, p. 81; Wrede, p. 9.
. Jung, p. 186.
. Statements in this direction also in Flacius (Moldaenke, p. 323).
. Cf. Augustine, DCD XVIII, 41, 43; XX, 1.
. Cf. Preus, pp. 39ff.; Reinhard, pp. 86ff.
. On Calvin cf. Palmer, p. 35; on Flacius cf. Moldaenke, pp. 9, 283, 303; on
Protestant Scholasticism cf. Preus, pp. 57, 66ff., 195ff.; on Philippi cf. I, p. 185.
. Cf. Moldaenke, p. 303.
E.g., Packer, Fundamentalism, passim.
. Thus Elert, Glaube, p. 171.
. Cf. my Kommentar zu Daniel in WStB.
. So rightly Stadelmann, pp. 19, 25.
. Cf. Preus, pp. 195ff.
. Cf. Philippi I, pp. 194ff.
. Cf. Preus, pp. 34f., 47.
. Preus, pp. 35f.; Philippi (see n. 269); Schmid, p. 25.
. Wrede, p. 35.
. Ibid., p. 42.
. Cf. Fitzmyer, pp. 39ff. Cf. however also the criticism of Dobschiitz, pp. 33ff.;
Frankemille, pp. 163ff.; McGinley, p. 154; Ridderbos, p. 31; and Schlatter
(Egg, p. 133).
. Gnilka, p. 466.
. Travis, p. 153.
. So Ridderbos, p. 31.
 ENDNOTES © 469

. Cf. Travis (n. 276 above).

. Cf. Ellis, pp. 240f.; Riesner, passim.
. Cf. here J. A. T. Robinson, Redating the New Testament (Philadelphia, 1976),
and C. P. Thiede, Die dlteste Evangelien-Handschrift (Wuppertal, 1986).
. Cf. Ellis, pp. 242ff.; Travis, p. 159; Riesner, pp. 350, 422, 491ff.
. Ellis, pp. 243ff.; Riesner, p. 502.
. Cf. W. Marxsen, Einleitung in das Neue Testament, 2d ed. (1964), pp. 143ff.
. Wrede, p. 35.
. “et ideo, licet varia singulis evangeliorum bibris principia doceantur, nihil
tamen differt credentium fidei. . . .” Translation above follows B. F. Westcott,
A General Survey of the History of the Canon of the New Testament (Grand
Rapids: Baker, 1980 [1889, 6th ed.]), p. 215.
. Cf. Grant, p. 68; Campenhausen, p. 335.
. Cf. the Daniel commentary in the Wuppertaler Studienbibel (p. 27).
. Cf. Campenhausen, p. 81.
. Chmiel, pp. 162f.; Campenhausen, pp. 1 11ff.
. Dial 65,2 according to the translation in Campenhausen, p. 111.
. Adv. haer. II, 28, 2. Cf. IV, 33, 8; IV, 32, 1; also Grant, p. 73.
. Campenhausen, pp. 323, 355, 374.
. Cf. Vogels, pp. 71, 53.
. Luther’s “open criticism of the Bible” is occasionally exaggerated, e.g., in
Nitzsch-Stephan, pp. 268f.
. Cf. Scheel, pp. 53, 70.
. Moldaenke, pp. 295f.
. Ibid., p. 268.
. Lau, col. 1724.
. Cf. Reinhard, pp. 10ff.; Preus, pp. 72ff.
. According to Preus, p. 77.
. Ibid., pp. 77f.
. Ibid., p. 79.
. Ibid., pp. 80ff.: “Si enim in uno alterove errare potuerunt Scripturae S. quis
certos reddet nos, quod in aliis non erraverunt?” (“For if Holy Scripture could
err in one or two things, who gives us the certainty that it has not also erred in
other matters?’”). Cf. H. Schmidt, pp. 20, 28.
Cf. my Joh-Offb, p. 418.
. Ibid.
. Le Brun, p. 100.
. Reventlow, p. 14.
. Ibid., p. 25; cf. Le Brun, p. 105; Kiimmel, pp. 41ff.
. According to Kiimmel, p. 42.
. Reventlow, pp. 33f.
. Ibid., pp. 35f.; cf. Grant, p. 153.
. Cf. Aner, p. 238.
. Grant, p. 151.
. Hofmann, p. 82.
. Ibid., pp. 123, 75f., 79ff.
470 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

316. According to Gennrich, p. 77. Similarly Lutz, p. 94.

St7: Thus W. Schmidt, 1869, pp. 35f.; cf. p. 60.
318. Schrenk, p. 31.
319. Ibid., pp. 34f.; cf. pp. 33, 36.
320. Childs, Theology, p. 104.
O21. Jenson, p. 244.
322. Herrnhuter Losungen [daily devotional readings], 1986, for the 10th of
September: “Mein Erbarmer selbst verspricht’s; sollt ich ihm sein Wort
verdrehen? Nein, er lasst mich ewig nicht; das ist meine Zuversicht.”
3233 Giinter Balders in foreword to Spurgeon, p. 3. Cf. Philippi I, p. 117.
324. Spurgeon, p. 31.
320. Ibid., pp. 31, 33.
326. Pius XII, p. 51 (cf. p. 43); papal Bible commission, 1964 (in Fitzmyer, p. 47).
Cf. Grant, pp. 166ff., who however refers to a turn in Pius XII’s views (pp.
172f.); also Kiihne, pp. 36ff.
327. Cf. Geisler, Decide, pp. 49, 75f.; idem, Errancy, pp. 11ff.; Henry IV, pp. 167ff.;
Packer, Battle, pp. 17ff.; Ramm, Interpr, pp. 183ff.
328. Campenhausen, p. 35.
S20. Ibid., pp. 33f.
330. Cf. R. Meyer’s translation, pp. 285f. as well as Koole, pp. 226f. (with
divergences at individual points).
Sak. Longenecker, p. 19.
332. To cite only a few examples: Hofmann, p. 82; Henry IV, p. 103; Packer,
Fundamentalism, p. 96; Stibbs, p. 117; article 2 of the Lausanne Covenant;
Schlatter, Dogma, p. 375.
333. Cf. my essay Wie legen wir die Scrift aus? (How Do We Interpret Scripture ?),
2d ed. (Giessen/Basel, 1982), pp. 39f.
334. Even Schlatter does this: Dogma, pp. 375ff.
335. Schlatter writes: “The infallibility of the Bible consists in this: it calls us to the
God” (Dogma, p. 376). We would say: “consists also in this . . .” Schlatter’s
understanding is too narrowly circumscribed and is not marked off clearly
enough from that of A. von Harnack, F. Traub, and others.
336. In his foreword to the first volume of his German writings of 1539 (see H. H.
Borcherdt and G. Merz, eds., Martin Luther, Ausgewdhlte Worte, vol. 1, 3d ed.
[Munich, 1951], p. 15).

CHAPTER EIGHT: The Canon

i Zahn defined the canon as “the list of books accepted as holy writings by the
church” (Grundriss, p. 9). Cf. H. W. Beyer in ThWNT 3 (1938): 600-606.
z Leiman, p. 29. Otherwise e.g., Kalin, p. 51. Eybers, Remarks, p. 111: ca. 200
B.C.; likewise Schafer, p. 116.
3: E.g., Campenhausen, p. 6; Oepke, ThWNT, p. 986; Koole, p. 230; R. Meyer,
p. 299; Trillhaas, p. 72.
Lewis, pp. 125 (referring toH.H. Rowley), 128, 132; Kalin, p. 48; Leiman, p.
125; Sanders, p. 161; Eybers, Remarks, pp. 96ff. See also Aune, “On the
Origins of the ‘Council of Jamnia’ Myth.”
 ENDNOTES @ 471

Contra Apionem I, 38ff. as translated by R. Meyer, p. 285.

Thus Koole, p. 229.
Thus R. Meyer, p. 290.
Thus also Leiman, pp. 32f.; Lewis, p. 128; Eybers, Remarks, p. 99.
Cf. R. Meyer, p. 286; Leiman, pp. 32f.; Koole, pp. 228ff.
Oepke, TRWNT, ps 988; Eybers, Remarks, p. 102.
Qumran is disputed; cf. Koole, p. 228 with Lewis, p. 128; Eybers, Remarks,
pp. 108ff.
Cf. Lewis, p. 128; Eybers, Remarks, pp. 106ff.
. Likewise Eybers, Remarks, pp. 100f.; Schéfer, p. 116.
. Cf. Sauer, p. 505; Lewis, p. 128.
. Cf. my essay on man and free will, pp. 24f.; Sauer, p. 490, places the date
somewhat earlier, “ca. 190 B.C.”
. Leiman, p. 30. Likewise Eybers, Remarks, p. 113. For other views see e.g.,
Aland, Kanon, p. 136; Sanders, p. 161; Gese, Theol, p. 13.
. Cf. Zahn, Grundriss, pp. 59ff., 65ff.; Aland, Kanon, pp. 141f.; Ohlig, p. 21.
. Windisch, pp. 158f.
Pedersen, pp. 99f.; cf. Aland, Kanon, p. 140; Zahn, Grundriss, pp. 35ff.
Pedersen, pp. 100ff.; Aland, Kanon, p. 140.
. Zahn, Grundriss, p. 26; cf. p. 15.
. Cf. Eusebius, H. E. III, 25.
. Thus likewise Campenhausen, p. 80
. Aland, Kanon, p. 147; cf. Barth, KD I, 2, pp. 524ff.
. Oepke, ThWNT, p. 988; Aland, Kanon, pp. 136ff.
. Scheel, p. 10. Cf. on the early church Eybers, Remarks, pp. 114ff.
. According to Bornkamm, Vorreden, p. 175.
atid. 177.
Cf. Nitzsch-Stephan, p. 288; Preus, p. xiv.
Nitzsch-Stephan, p. 288. Cf. already Flacius (Moldaenke, p. 259).
. Philippi I, pp. 123f.
. According to Hennig, p. 38.
. Cf. Palmer, pp. 38f.
Cf. Ridderbos, pp. 6, If.
Cf. Kiimmel, pp. 32ff.
. Cf. Dinkler, p. 16; Ridderbos, p. 10.
. Schleiermacher, p. 254.
. Thus Kriiger, p. 15.
So e.g., Nitzsch-Stephan, p. 292; Aland, Kanon, pp. 151ff.; O. Weber, pp.
290ff.; Trillhaas, p. 73; Barth, KD I, 2, pp. 530f.
. Cf. Blank, p. 7: The canon forms “the factual, pre-given foundation of biblical
science. Pragmatically speaking its work centers there.” Cf. also the comments
on the canon’s historical-pragmatic importance in Stuhlmacher, Verstehen, pp.
35ff.
41. Cf. Ridderbos, p. 6; Sasse, pp. 310f.
42. Calvin, Inst I, 8, 6.
472 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

43. This is clearly seen in e.g., Ohlig, p. 313. Cf. also the critique of Ridderbos, p.
57.
. Cf. Preus, p. xiv.
. Sundberg (p. 369) maintains that for the early church inspiration was not a
criterion for distinguishing canonical from noncanonical writings.
. According to Bornkamm, Vorreden, p. 178. To the contrary: Flacius
(Moldaenke, p. 217). For a recent critique see Ridderbos, pp. 12f.
. Cf. O. Weber, pp. 285f.; Ohlig, p. 313.
. Soe.g., the Confessio Virtembergica, art. 30.
. Ridderbos (pp. 11, 49ff.), e.g., rejects the attempt to use apostolicity as a basis
because of such historical uncertainty.
Ridderbos, pp. 22, 58.
. O. Weber, p. 284.
They could not, of course, be multiplied by words of inspired persons, contrary
to R. Bultmann’s claims in Geschichte der synoptischen Tradition, 6th ed.
(1964), p. 135.
. Cf. Riesenfeld, pp. 21ff.
Aland, Kanon, p. 147; cf. pp. 151f. To the contrary however Barr, pp. 72f.
. O. Weber, p. 280; cf. pp. 275, 277f.
The canon is made to appear a product of the church even where e.g., Trillhaas,
p. 72, wants to explain it as arising “from the need for religious security.”
. Cf. Moldaenke, p. 266.
. Thus rightly Aland, Kanon, p. 152; also Philippi I, p. 115; Kahler,
Wissenschaft, p. 387.
. Gese, Theol, p. 13.
Sundberg, pp. 356ff. Critical of Gese is Schafer, pp. 117ff.
. Cf. Barth, KD I, 2, pp. 524ff.
. Lonning, p. 45.
. Thus e.g., Lotz, p. 272.
. L6nning, pp. 72ff.
. Cf. Moldaenke, pp. 281ff.
. Ibid., p. 284.
. Barr, p. 72, totally overlooks this.
. Hofmann, p. 89.
. Cf. ibid., pp. 82ff.
Pedersen, p. 90.
. Thus Blank, p. 15.
Ibid., p. 9.
. Thus Joest, Kanon, p. 198. Such subjectivism is taken to an even greater
extreme in Barr, p. 73.
In Kasemann, pp. 175ff. and 205ff.
. Lonning, pp. 271f.
Hesse, AT, p. 34. Cf. p. 106. A
. Tbid., AT, p. 35.
. Cf. my Das Ende der historisch-kritischen Methode, Sth ed. (Wuppertal, 1984).
. Gese, Theol, p. 29.
 ENDNOTES @ 473

Cf. Martin, p. 225.

. Cf. Beisser, NZSTh, p. 209; Hasel, pp. 165ff.; Childs, Introduction, p. 44;
Childs, Theology, p. 102; Kiing in Kasemann, pp. 191ff.
. Cf. Hasel, pp. 165ff.; Kiing in Kasemann, p. 192; Ridderbos, pp. 16f., 45ff.
. Cf. Ohlig, pp. 12f.
Cf. Girgensohn, Insp, p. 64.
. Examples‘of such (willful!) dissolution are found in Wrede (pp. 10ff.) and
Gunkel (Klatt, p. 265).
. This is another point at which we find ourselves in agreement with Barth (KD
I, 2, pp. 545ff.).
. Apart from Childs cf. James A. Sanders; J. Kenneth Eakins along with the
discussion in Barr, JSOT; Blenkinsopp; B. Kittel and R. Smend, JSOT. While
in the last-named writer’s judgment “Childs’ book is to me the most important
new publication of recent years in our discipline” (p. 45), Barr rejects Childs’
Old Testament introduction as “a simple intellectual error” (JSOT, p. 16).
88. Cf. Childs, Theology, p. 99, along with the fuller statement on pp. 91ff.; idem,
Introduction, p. 45.
89. Among other problems: he has in mind at the same time “to make full and
consistent use of the historical critical tools” (Introduction, p. 45). Still more
radical at this point is Sanders, pp. 162ff.

CHAPTER NINE: The Authority of Scripture

Schadewaldt, p. 216.
Spurgeon, p. 73.
Scholder, pp. 132f.
Jung, p. 344.
Trillhaas, p. 80. Cf. Barnikol, p. 38, especially on F. C. Baur. Cf. also Sasse,
p. 306.
. So Berger, pp. 243f.
. Semmelroth-Zerwick, p. 80. Cf. Grillmeier, pp. 161ff.
. Cf. here Amberg, pp. 25f.
Strauss, p. 2.
Ibid., p. 126.
. Ibid., p. 255.
. Ebeling, RGG, col. 254.
Cf. Amberg, p. 9; Klatt, pp. 268, 28.
Cf. Girgensohn, Reformgedanken, p. 88.
So Wrede, p. 8.
Funk, p. 11. Cf. regarding the Continent Girgensohn, Schriftbeweis, pp. 62f.
Funk, p. 5.
. Stuhlmacher, Verstehen, pp. 222ff.; earlier e.g., Ebeling, ZThK, pp. 25ff. Cf.
also Graésser, Ev Komm, p. 273.
Wilckens, p. 133.
Ibid., p. 133. Stuhlmacher, Verstehen, pp. 222ff., essentially follows this same
line.
. Funk, p. 14.
474 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

22. Bultmann, GV II, p. 235. Cf. Ebeling, ZThK, p. 43. Interestingly, the
commemoration of Bultmann’s 100th birthday (Dt Pf Bl, August 1984)
appeared under the title “Veracity.”
. Weber, Schriftforschung, p. 3. Cf. Girgensohn, Schriftbeweis, p. 76.
. Kropatscheck, p. 454. Cf. Luther’s views in Hirsch, Hilfsbuch, pp. 94ff., 84.
. Hirsch, Hilfsbuch, p. 85, citing the Assertio omnium articulorum of 1520 (WA
VII, pp. 96ff.). Cf. Scheel, pp. 33, 62f.
. Scheel, p. 71. Cf. my Joh-Offb, p. 419.
. Cf. Kramer II, p. 399; also my Joh-Offb, pp. 414ff.
. Des Herrn Wort, p. 176.
. Weber, Schriftforschung, pp. 122ff.
. Amberg, p. 51.
. Thus e.g., Ebeling, ZThK, p. 2.
Amberg, p. 61.
. Contra Ap I, 38ff. Cf. Koole, p. 226; R. Meyer, pp. 285f.
Cf. Elert, Morphologie, p. 173.
Moldaenke, pp. 583ff.
Cf. Preus, pp. 106ff. On Buddeus cf. Reinhard, p. 48.
. Thus e.g., Philippi I, p. 93. Similar thoughts are found in Girgensohn,
Grundriss, p. 65.
Cf. Lutz, p. 81 with p. 72.
Seeberg, p. 9.
Cf. Semmelroth-Zerwick, pp. 79f.
. Barr, pp. 28 and 2ff.
. Cf. Courth, p. 67.
. Girgensohn, Grundriss, pp. 56ff.
Trillhaas, p. 84.
. Ebeling, ZThK, p. 28, clearly expressed this state of affairs.
. Cf. Amberg, p. 100.
» ES LOZ Ds a tos
. Cf. the interesting discussion in Reinhard, p. 104, as well as in Ebeling, ZThK,
pp. 27ff.
. Cf. Reinhard, pp. 97ff. Similarly Joh. Franz Buddeus (Reinhard, pp. 39ff.).
. Inst I, 7, 4. Cf. Kraus, ZKG, p. 330.
. Cf. Campenhausen, p. 323.
. Cf. Ridderbos, p. 20.
TEELeUS APD alae
. [bid., p. 13.
. Cf. my Joh-Offb, pp. 345, 414.
. Schmid, pp. 29ff.
. E.g., in Pius XII (pp. 9, 47).
. Kraus, ZKG, pp. 330ff., points out rightly that there are, however, certain
differentiations and emphases that need to be noted.
. Preus, p. 89. Cf. Palmer, pp. 35f. on Calvin; Preus, p. 38 on Quenstedt; Pius
XII, p. 43; Pieper, p. 143.
. Cf. Kraus, ZKG, p. 330.
 ENDNOTES @ 475

. Cf. again ibid.; Ridderbos, p. 20.

. Interestingly Philippi (1, pp. 93ff.) here follows largely in Calvin’s train. Cf.
however also Preus, pp. 108f.; Pieper, p. 143.
. Thus Gross-Mussner, p. 74.
Philippi I, p. 97; cf. p. 92.
. WA VII, pp. 96ff., according to Hirsch, Hilfsbuch, p. 85. Cf. Frei, p. 19.
. Cf. Henry fV, p. 50:
. Abraham, pp. 100ff., 106.
. Barr, pp. 14ff., 22 (appealing to Abraham).
. Stuhlmacher, Verstehen, pp. 64f. (The judgment above is based on the second
edition, 1986).
. Ibid., p. 65.
. Cf. Campenhausen, pp. 13f.; Stadelmann, pp. 23ff.
. This false impression should be abandoned.
. Cf. among others Packer, Fundamentalism, pp. S6ff.
. Abraham, p. 98.
. Cf. Henry IV, p. 50.
. Cf. Végtle’s essay on enscripturation.
. Theses for debate of 11 Sept. 1535, in Hirsch, Hilfsbuch, p. 94.
. Cf. Stadelmann, p. 25.
On dominical tradition in 1 Peter cf. my essay in Gospel Perspectives, vol. 5
(1985), pp. 85ff.
Cf. Vogtle, Schriftwerdung, pp. 297ff.
. Cf. StuhImacher, Verstehen, pp. 54f.
yo GT. Preus.0..207,
. Wellhausen, p. 135.
. BELK, p. 767; cf. O. Weber, pp. 298f.
. O. Weber, p. 298.
Ibid., p. 299. Cf. Schmid, pp. 30f.; Pieper, pp. 83ff.
. Reinhard, p. 43. On Baumgarten cf. Schloemann, pp. 72ff.
. Cf. Girgensohn, Insp, p. 9. For an example see Grasser, ZThK, p. 201.
. Ebeling, ZThK, pp. 25, 27, 30.
. Redlich, Traditions, p. 12; cf. p. 11.
. Ricoeur, HThR, p. 37.
. Cf. Preus, pp. 88ff. For a more recent example see Pieper, p. 143.
, anst 12; 4.
Inst I, 7, 5.
. Cf. my Joh-Offb, p. 419.
. Cf. ibid., pp. 399, 418.
. Cf. Beisser, Claritas, passim.
. Cf. the quotation from De servo arbitrio in Hirsch, Hilfsbuch, p. 87.
. Holl, p. 551.
According to Hirsch, Hilfsbuch, p. 86.
. Cf. Preus, pp. 156ff. On Flacius cf. Moldaenke, p. 306.
. Cf. still Pieper, p. 158.
. Schmid, pp. 44ff.
 e BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

. Luther also pondered this matter (WA 8, 236).

. Cf. O. Weber, p. 310; Schmid, pp. 44ff.; recently Pieper, p. 156.
. De doctr christ II, 9.
. Schmid, p. 45; O. Weber, p. 310; Pieper, p. 156.
. Luther, Assertio omnium articulorum, 1520 (WA 7, 96ff.; cf. Hirsch,
Hilfsbuch, p. 85); Flacius in Moldaenke, p. 351.
. O. Weber, p. 310.
. Moldaenke, p. 306.
. Cf. Riesner, pp. 408ff.
. Diem, p. 12; Grasser, ZThK, passim.
. Cf. O. Weber, pp. 303f.
. Cf. again ibid., pp. 306f.
. Prax 18, 2. Cf. Campenhausen, p. 329.
. Cf. Moldaenke, p. 356; Schmid, pp. 40ff.; Preus, pp. 76, 147ff.
. Inst III, 21, 3 as translated in Hirsch, Hilfsbuch, p. 109. Cf. Preus, pp. 147ff.
. Cf. Preus, pp. 134ff. On Bengel’s more carefully grounded judgment see my
Joh-Offb, pp. 413ff.
. Cf. K. Junack, Bibelreport, 1, 1976.
. O. Weber, pp. 308f.
. Ibid. p. 309.
. Girgensohn, Insp, p. 24.
. Ibid., pp. 25f., following Hamann. Cf. Amberg’s criticism, p. 49.
. Grasser, ZThK, pp. 201, 209.
. (Geiger, p.227.

CHAPTER TEN: The Unity of Scripture

: Hesse, AT, p. 35. Cf. p. 294; Wrede, pp. 79f.; Dibelius, p. 93; Jenson, p. 243;
Gunkel, p. 35; Fuchs, p. 22.
Redlich, Traditions, p. 11.
Dibelius, p. 93. Cf. Girgensohn, Grundriss, p. 63.
Thus Barr, p. 3.
SS Examples: Elert, Glaube, p. 190; Joest, Kanon, p. 196; Weber,
Schriftforschung, p. 36; Schrenk, p. 33; Stuhlmacher, Verstehen, p. 240. To
my chagrin also my own teacher KGberle, pp. 16ff.
Grant, p. 68.
Frei, p. 8.
Contra Ap I, 38. Cf. R. Meyer, p. 285.
Cf. Heinisch, pp. 47, 52ff.; Burkhardt, p. 75.
Heinisch, pp. 47ff.
. Campenhausen, p. 111; Chmiel, p. 162.
. Campenhausen, p. 335; cf. p. 362; Grant, pp. 70ff.; Bonwetsch, p. 39.
. Cf. Vogels, pp. 2, 13, 53, 88. On Theodore of Mopsuestia cf. Kihn, p. 121.
. Cf. Scheel, p. 18, along with Bring, pp. 10, 21; Popkin, p. 7; Beisser, Claritas,
p. 129,
. Kraus, ZKG, p. 341.
. Cf. Moldaenke, pp. 10, 604; Preus, pp. 17ff.; also Gadamer, pp. 163f.
 ENDNOTES @ 477

. Moldaenke, p. 604: Scripture is not a “chaotic confusion.”

. Cf. my Joh-Offb, p. 421.
. Strauss, pp. 120, 254.
Frei, p. 8. Cf. Hornig, pp. 84ff.; Meyer II, p. 169.
. Merk, Anfange, p. 45.
. Keil, p. 108. a
. Liicke, p. 60.
. Cf. Hofmann, pp. 30ff., 34, 100.
. Lutz, p. 14.
. Thus Philippi I, p. 199.
. Ibid., p. 206.
. Wrede, pp. 27, 3.
. Examples: Beisser, NZSTh, pp. 205, 214; Pieper, pp. 110ff.; Lerle, pp. 49ff.
. Example: Heim, Ich gedenke, p. 208.
. Here Schlatter comes to mind (Dogma, pp. 369ff.), although Schlatter balked
at every attempt to pigeonhole his views.
Examples: Ladd, p. 32; Henry IV, pp. 450ff.; Packer, Fundamentalism, pp. 84,
109f., 113f. and Battle, pp. 23, 41; Mickelsen, pp. 86ff.; L. Berkhof, p. 53.
. Soe.g., Packer, Fundamentalism, pp. 84, 110, 113f. and Battle, pp. 23, 41; L.
Berkhof, p. 53.
. Packer, Fundamentalism, p. 109; cf. p. 114. In Battle, p. 53, Packer speaks of
a “method of harmonizing.”
. Girgensohn, Insp, p. 41. Cf. Procksch, AT, p. 33; Frey, Ansatz, p. 175.
. Girgensohn, Insp, p. 44.
Ibid., pp. 42ff.; Procksch, AT, pp. 42ff.
Examples: Wolff, p. 145; Jepsen, pp. 258ff.; Gese, Theol, passim; Kraus, Bibl
Theol, passim.
Cf. Vogtle, Schriftwerdung, passim.
. Already in Philo; cf. Heinisch, pp. 47ff.
. Cf. Semmelroth-Zerwick, p. 79; Grillmeier, p. 186; Lohfink, p. 162; Procksch,
AT, p. 33; Berkhof, p. 53; Packer, Fundamentalism, p. 84; Packer, Battle, p.
23. Concerning Bengel cf. my Joh-Offb, pp. 415f.
. Schlatter, Dogma, p. 369.
. Cf. my Joh-Offb, p. 416.
Incidentally, Schlatter relates what he says here to Otinger! Cf. Schlatter,
Dogma, p. 590 n. 215.
. Cf. Bengel in my Joh-Offb, p. 416; Schlatter, Dogma, p. 370.
. K&asemann, p. 371.
. Cf. Schlatter, Dogma, p. 369.
. Ibid.
. Modern examples: Berkhof, p. 53; Ladd, p. 32; Packer, Battle, pp. 22f.;
Ramm, Interpr, pp. 111ff.; Vogtle, Auslegung, p. 43.
Cf. Packer’s concept of “complex unity” (Battle, p. 23).
. Weber, Schriftforschung, p. 36.
This is the point from which to understand Wrede’s fierce aversion to a
478 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

“method of doctrinal concepts” (Wrede, pp. 17ff.). Cf. Hofmann, p. 14:

Scripture is “the record of a history” and not a “revelation of doctrine.”
. Goppelt, Typos, pp. 239, 248f.
Ibid., pp. 240ff.
. Campenhausen, p. 46.
Cf. ibid., pp. 109, 116, 121, 320; Grant, pp. 70ff.; O. Weber, p. 336.
. Cf. my Joh-Offb, pp. 113ff.
_ Cf. ibid., pp. 174ff.
Klassen, pp. 96ff.
Cf. Moldaenke, pp. 60, 577.
. Cf. my Joh-Offb, pp. 325ff.
. Cf. ibid., pp. 353ff., 415ff.
. Cf. Hofmann, p. 9.
Weber, Schriftforschung, p. 20.
. Cf. Procksch, AT, pp. 44f.; Frey, Ansatz, p. 163.
. E.g., Packer, Battle, p. 41; Yri, p. 17.
. E.g., Wolff, p. 161.
. Schadewaldt, passim.
. Schlatter, Dogma, p. 369, thus objects to the “reformation use of Scripture.”
. Goppelt, Typos, pp. 70ff., 239.
. Aner, p. 4.
. Cf. ibid., pp. 52, 156, and 49ff.
. Ibid., p. 206.
. Semler takes this view.
. Bultmann, Mythologie, pp. 23, 26, 16, 48.
. Bultmann, GV I, pp. 333ff.
. Bultmann, ThLZ 64 (1939): col. 254.
. Ricoeur, HThR, p. 35.
. Schlatter, Dogma, p. 369: “[The Bible] leaves gaps in our sequence of thought
and is quite aware that it possesses such gaps, yet sees no deficiency in this.”
. The phrase is from Schadewaldt, p. 216.
. One of the most recent attempts is that of Biirgener.
. We honor Luther by following his desire that “no one bind himself to my
thinking or judgment” (Bornkamm, Vorreden, p. 179).
. Kasemann, pp. 368, 405.
Kiing in ibid., pp. 175ff.; Loser, pp. 53ff.
. Bengel, Erkl Offb, p. 964.
Lotz, p. 270.
It even crops up in Erasmus (Scheel, p. 10)! On the contemporary situation cf.
Beisser, Claritas, pp. 210ff.
Scheel, p. 18.
Cf. here Pieper, pp. 133f.
Cf. Grant, p. 131.
. Coming to the same result is Schlatter, Dogma, p. 370. Otherwise e. g., Weber,
Schriftforschung, p. 13; Joest, Kanon, p. 198; Lénning, pp. 72ff.
* Basen. prod:
 ENDNOTES @ 479

. Ibid., p. 54.
. Ibid.
. K&asemann, pp. 175ff.
Amberg, p. 65, appealing to Barth’s Christliche Dogmatik im Entwurf, |
(Munich, 1927).
. Schlatter, Dogma, p. 370.
. All quotes in this paragraph from Schlatter, Dogma, p. 370.
. O. Weber, p. 264.
Ibid.,
p.334.
. Cf. the standpoint of the Old Testament specialist Procksch, AT, p. 2.
. Cf. once more O. Weber, pp. 334ff., who draws on Jn 8:58 and other passages.
. Ibid., p. 336, according to Inst II, 11, 4.
Against Blank, p. 16; also Beisser, Claritas, p. 214.
. Cf. Schlatter, Dogma, p. 370.
. Le Brun, pp. 104f.
. Keil, p. 108. Cf. also Liicke, p. 60.
. Wrede, pp. 27, 3.
. Philippi I, p. 206.
. Ibid., p. 199.
. Packer, Battle, p. 53. Cf. Packer, Fundamentalism, pp. 113f.
. Cf. especially Blomberg, pp. 166ff.
. Ibid., p. 161.
. This must be said, regrettably, also against KOberle, p. 21.
. Thus also Lutz, p. 14.
116. To this extent Koberle, p. 16, is correct.
if?. Cf. Henry II, p. 311.

CHAPTER ELEVEN: The Historical Nature (Historicality) of Scripture

L. Heinisch, p. 43. But see now the opposing views of Burkhardt, passim.
Cf. Heinisch, pp. 42f.
Koberle, p. 24.
V. Rad, p. 11.
Henry II, p. 312.
Ibid., p. 247.
Ibid., p. 311. Cf. Packer, Battle, p. 22.
Pannenberg, p. 299. Cf. Hofmann, pp. 118ff.
. Pannenberg, p. 295.
SOMNAAARWH
Ibid., pp. 296, 295. Cf. here Semmelroth-Zerwick for the Catholic position (p.
85).
Cf. also Procksch, AT, p. 17.
Weber, Schriftforschung, pp. 6, 20; cf. Oepke, p. 30; Procksch, AT, pp. 17, 13.
Procksch, AT, p. 15.
Marshall, Criticism, p. 126.
Henry II, p. 321. Already Baumgarten (Schloemann, pp. 165f.).
Cf. again Henry II, p. 321.
Cf. Marshall, Criticism, p. 127; Weber, Schriftforschung, p. 4.
480 e BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

. That remains true despite Henry’s remarks (II, p. 314, on Kahler).

. Schloemann, pp. 189f.; cf. pp. 186ff.
. Ibid., p. 188.
. On Bengel cf. Ludwig, p. 28.
. Bornkamm, Luther, p. 207.
. Ibid.
. Aner, p. 4. Cf. Henry I, p. 312.
. Hornig, p. 90.
. Meyer II, pp. 352ff.
. Weber, Schriftforschung, p. 48.
. Nicely presented in ibid., pp. 47f.
. Cf. Henry’s critique (II, p. 314).
Girgensohn, Schriftbeweis, pp. 73, 1. On Bousset cf. Kiimmel, p. 331.
. Girgensohn, Schriftbeweis, p. 76.
Ibid.
. Ibid., pp. 73, 1. Note the similarity to Brunner.
Schrenk, pp. 4f. Cf. also Weber, Schriftforschung, p. 35.
. Brunner, Geschichte, p. 270.
Brunner, Erlebnis, pp. 106f. Like Bultmann, Brunner appeals here to 2Co 5:16.
, Abid.op. 127:
. Ibid., pp. 107, 112.
. Cf. Lindemann, p. 26; my Joh-Offb, pp. 5SOff.; Oepke himself, p. 30.
. Oepke, p. 30.
. Ibid.
. Ibid., pp. 36f.
. Wellhausen, pp. 385f.
But not only them! Cf. Pannenberg.
. Cf., to name just two examples, the papal Bible commission in Fitzmyer, p. 41
(obviously directed against Bultmann, Ebeling, and similar theologians), and
Henry Il, pp. 247ff.
. The term is from W. J. Bittner, Jesu Zeichen im Johannesevangelium, WUNT,
2d series, 26 (Tiibingen, 1987), p. 76.
. Thurneysen, p. 25. Cf. Diem, p. 38.
. Geiger, p. 242.
. Kiimmel, p. 162. Cf. Liebing, p. 311.
. Quoted from Geiger, p. 225. Cf. Liebing, p. 315.
. Cf. Klatt, p. 264.
. Cf. Kiimmel, pp. 325ff., on this point.
. According to Klatt, p. 261.
. Ibid., p. 268.
. Cf. on this point Ahn, passim, and most of all pp. 79ff.
. Bultmann, GV II, p. 229.
. Gemmer/Messer, p. 18.
. Droysen, p. 12.
. Ibid.
. Ibid., p. 24.
 ENDNOTES @ 481

. Ibid., p. 5.
. Ibid., p. xii.
. Frei, p. 57, speaks of the “meaning-and-fact issue.”
Schneider, pp. 257f.
. Fuchs, p. 116.
. Dinkler, p. 22.
. Diem, pp. 40ff., saw the impossibility of this position and wishes to uphold the
“happened-ness” of the events attested in Scripture, even if these amount to
“tales” and “legends”—a solution having little plausibility.
. Schloemann, p. 166.
. On this contradiction cf. from the early twentieth century Weber,
Schriftforschung, p. 33; Fascher, pp. 94, 99; more recently Frey, Ansatz, p.
173. On the Catholic situation see Fitzmyer, p. 41.
That comes to light e.g. in Diem, pp. 16ff.
. Betti, pp. 20, 27ff., 34f., 46. Cf. Schadewaldt, passim.
. Ricoeur (AThR, p. 446) refers to Strathmann, ThWNT 4.
. Ibid.
. Ibid.
. Ibid.
. Ibid., p. 445.
. Ricoeur, HThR, p. 33. Cf. Frey, Ansatz, p. 173.
. Ricoeur, HThR, p. 35.
Otto, p. xviii.
Ibid., p. xxi.
. Ibid.
Ibid.
. Ibid., p. xxii.
Ibid., p. xxi.
. Josephus BJ, I, 2f.
Ibid., I, 9, 16.
PADI, Lees 95 bay 10,
. Schadewaldt, p. 222.
. Cf. the introduction by Michel-Bauernfeind in Josephus BJ, pp. xxiiiff.
. Cf. n. 87 above.
. Livius, Praefatio, 6.
Ibid., 10.
. Sneen, p. 40. Cf. on Josephus Michel-Bauernfeind in Josephus BJ, p. xxiv.
Cf. Kiirzinger, p. 254.
. Sneen, pp. 40, 41.
This was known already by Flacius (Moldaenke, p. 324). Cf. Mickelsen, p. 45;
Westermann, p. 26.
. In Ricoeur, HThR, p. 33.
. Cf. Mishna, Pesachim, X, 1ff.
G. von Rad, Das fiinfte Buch Mose. Deuteronomium, ATD, 8, 2d ed.
(Gottingen, 1968), pp. 113f.
Dibelius, p. 32.
 e@ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

. Weber, Schriftforschung, p. 53.

. Schlingensiepen, pp. 47, 76f.; Petzke, p. 7.
. Cf. Elert, Morphologie, p. 173; Moldaenke, pp. 583ff.
. Reinhard, p. 48.
. Strauss, p. 117.
. Schulz, p. 64.
. Cf. Grant, pp. 146ff.; Strauss, pp. 106ff.; my article on miracle exegesis in
Gospel Perspectives, vol. 6, pp. SOff.
. Grant, p. 151.
. Frei, p. 328.
. Ibid., p. 53.
. Ibid.
. Allusions to this in Aner, pp. 166, 208; Schdffler, pp. 39f.
. Cf. Reinhard, p. 48; Stolzenburg, p. 112.
. Stolzenburg, p. 108.
. Cf. e.g., Aner, p. 216, on Christoph August Heumann.
. Aner, pp. 306f.
. Cf. my article on miracle exegesis, pp. 52f.
. Cf. Liicke, p. 134.
. Cf. Girgensohn, Schriftbeweis, pp. 20f.; my article on miracle exegesis, pp.
S3ff.
. Baur, An Hase, p. 20.
. Barnikol, ZKG, p. 89.
. Cf. e.g., Weber, Schriftforschung, p. 177; Henry II, pp. 324ff.; Frey, Ansatz,
p. 171. The opposite view in e.g., Dinkler, p. 21; my article on miracle
exegesis, pp. 72ff.
. Fitzmyer, pp. 41f.
. Against Trillhaas, pp. 168ff.
. Cf. Maier, Wunderexegese, pp. 71f.
. E.g., in the Talmud b Sota 47a; b Sanhedrin 106a/106b; 43a.
. Schlatter, Dogma, p. 58.
. Ibid.
. Still held by Buddeus (Reinhard, p. 48).
. On Flacius see Moldaenke, pp. 583ff.; on Buddeus see Reinhard, p. 48.
. Cf. my Joh-Offb, pp. 112f.
. Cf. the numerous pesherim and florilegia.
. Fitzmyer, p. 41.
. E.g., Ramm, Interpr, p. 68.
. Frei, p. 53.
. Lessing, Erziehung, §85.
. According to Frei, pp. 327, 7; cf. p. 83.
. Reinhard, p. 88.
. Stroth, p. 262.
. Cf. my Joh-Offb, p. 462.
. Ibid., pp. 463f.
. Wellhausen, p. 128.
 ENDNOTES @ 483

. Ibid., p. 155.
. Ibid., p. 382.
. Zockler, p. v.
. Delitzsch, p. xxxii.
. Hesse, AT, p. 82.
. Ibid., p. 84.
. Ibid.,’p. 86.
. An example is Trillhaas, pp. 471 ff.
. Hesse, AT, p. 101.
. Ibid., p. 86.
. Thus Duhn, p. xvi.
. Ricoeur, HThR, p. 3.
. Thus Duhn, p. xvii.
. This line of analysis was surely employed in the trial of Jesus.
. Rejection of requests for signs also takes place but would require a separate
discussion.
. Likewise the Talmud (b Sota 47a; b Sanh 43a, 106a/b).
. b Sanh 43a in R. Mayer’s translation.
. Schlatter, Dogma, p. 327.
. What Matthew writes here is enigmatic.
. Schlatter, Dogma, p. 328.
. Cf. the fulfillment citations in Matthew and the messianic disputations in John;
also Ro 1:2f.; Heb 7-10.
. According to Kiimmel, p. 83 (related first to the apostolic epistles).
. Ricoeur, HThR, p. 18.
. Cf. Schlatter, Dogma, pp. 536, 538.
. Hesse, AT, p. 86, says that the future announced in the Old Testament will
“never become fact.”
. Daube, p. 408.
. Ibid.
. Ibid., p. 412.
. Sneen, p.41.
. German-language versions like the revised Elberfelder Bible and the New
Jerusalem Bible retain this translation.
. Cf. Kiirzinger, p. 253, who translates it as “in what follows, as follows,” as
well as Pedersen, p. 93.
. Sneen, p. 41.
. Blomberg, p. 157.
. Ibid.
. Vogels, p. 120.
. Cf. Euseb H.E. III, 39, 15.
. Quite similarly Blomberg, p. 156.
. Blomberg, passim.
. Wachter, p. 108.
. Such a flight to a safe haven is taken by both the advocates of a theology of
484 e BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

“paradox” and the advocates of an existential theology, as well as by Platonist

theologians and speculative lay believers in churches.
183. On sensus plenior cf. recently Douglas J. Moo in Hermeneutics, pp. 175ff.

CHAPTER TWELVE: Revelation and Criticism

1. Latacz, pp. 13f. All citations in this paragraph are from this source.
Cf. Schadewaldt, pp. 201 ff.
Cf. Ramm, Interpr, p. 9; Stanton, p. 68.
Marshall, Criticism, p. 131.
Mickelsen, p. 45. Cf. Osborne, p. 15.
Pinnock, pp. 85ff., 136ff., 222ff.
Ibid., pp. 136ff.
E.g., Ramm, Interpr, pp. 9, 101.
According to Amberg, p. 86.
aod The spectrum extends from Ebeling (ZThK, p. 7) to Schrenk (p. 5), from
trad
od
eed
reed
ed
EY
rad
_—

Amberg (p. 118) to the Theol. Seminar EmK (pp. 82ff.) and to Evertz (pp. 4ff.).
. Ritcher, p. 18.
ne
— . Cf. on the Protestant side e.g., Barr, p. 121; Dobschiitz, p. 24 (“the interpreter
... has... the obligation . . . to come to the text critically”); on the Catholic
side e.g., Blank, p. 9.
. Grasser, ZThK, p. 220.
Schrenk, p. 6; cf. Amberg, p. 121.
Ebeling, ZThK, p. 43; Hirsch in Amberg, p. 86.
Courth, p. 74.
. Klauck, p. 99.
. Tbid., p. 99.
. Weber, Esch, p. 222.
In Barnikol, p. 88 (letter of 19 August 1836 to F. C. Baur).
. Ibid. (in the same letter).
. Dobschiitz, p. 56.
. Ebeling, ZThK, p. 5.
. Tbid., p. 30.
. Grasser, ZThK, p. 220. In Lerle, p. 60, there is a further example of an insult
that pretty well pushes the limits from ZThK, p. 358 (by H. Schuster).
. Ebeling, ZThK, p. 6.
. Yet reference may be made here to the other chapters of this book, which for
the most part ad Jocum contain historical discussions.
. Scholder, p. 7.
. Tbid., p. 14.
Ebeling, RGG, col. 253.
. Cf. Scholder, p. 73.
Le Brun, p. 109. Cf. Hasel, p. 18.
. Not counting the first chapter which deals with prehistory.
Kiimmel, p. 42. Cf. Le Brun, pp. 110ff.
. Kiimmel, p. 42.
Ibid.
 ENDNOTES ® 485

. Ibid., p. 43.
. Cf. Le Brun, pp. 106ff.
Hornig, p. 184; Merk, Anfange, p. 53.
. E.g., Dinkler, p. 15; Kiimmel, pp. 41ff.; Meyer I, pp. 24f.; III, p. 315.
. Cf. Le Brun, pp. 109f. (who nevertheless remarks that the Socinians have “still
not yet been thoroughly researched”); Scholder, pp. 48ff.
. Scholder, p. 132.
. Picht, p. 19.
. Cf. Scholder, p. 133.
. Picht, p. 19.
Le Brun, p. 110.
. Scholder, p. 147.
. Balthasar Bekker, according to Scholder, p. 147. Cf. Reinhard, p. 46.
Picht.p. 15;
Cf. Hasel, p. 18; Gass IV, p. 11; Aner, pp. 22 (on Lessing), 27f., 68ff.;
Sch6ffler, pp. 39f.; Schloemann, pp. 160ff. (on Baumgarten); Kiimmel, pp.
55ff.; Dilthey, Schriften V, p. 325.
. Meyer V, pp. 7f.
This is effectively worked out by Schloemann, pp. 96ff., 166ff.
., Cf. Aner; p.3.
. Cf. Meyer II, p. 328.
. Meyer I, p. 6.
. Ibid., p. 15.
. E.g., Meyer II, pp. 335ff.; Aner, p. 37.
. Stolzenburg, p. 435.
. Meyer II, pp. 352ff., 378.
. Schoffler, p. 51.
5, IbiKs0..55,
. Ibid., pp. 26ff.
. Ibid., pp. 54, 29.
Aner, p. 12.
. Choisy, p. 166.
. According to Gass IV, p. 28. Similarly still A. Jiilicher (Klauck, p. 100).
. Cf. Aner, passim; Barr, p. 122; Hornig, passim; Pinnock, p. 131; Sanders, p.
157; Wilckens, p. 95.
. Cf. Meyer I, pp. Sff., 18.
. Gadamer, p. 170; Stolzenburg, p. 446.
Aner, p. 4.
. Lessing, Erziehung, §74. Cf. Aner, p. 158.
. Aner, pp. 49ff.
. Ibid., p. 80. Cf. Stolzenburg, p. 440.
Stolzenburg, p. 105.
. Thus Pfaff (Stolzenburg, pp. 95f.); Meyer V, p. 13.
The latter expression e.g., in Meyer III, p. 315.
. Schloemann, p. 233.
. Stolzenburg, p. 94.
486 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

79. Schloemann, pp. 227ff.

80. Ebeling, ZThK, p. 32.
81. Ibid. Cf. Stolzenburg, p. 438.
82. In Gennrich, p. 99.
83. Van den Berg, p. 251.
84. Cf. Courth, p. 97.
85. Girgensohn, Insp, p. 4; cf. F. Traub, p. 83; Seeberg, p. 7.
86. The author: Hermann Risch (Pfarrergebetsbruderschaft, Persénliche
Mitteilungen, Folge 92, January 1984).
87. Cf. Esking, pp. 78f.
88. Childs, Theology, p. 140.
89. Cf. ibid., p. 141; idem, Introduction, pp. 40f.
90. Seeberg, p. 5. Similarly Stuhlmacher, Verstehen, p. 31.
91. Giittgemanns, p. 253.
92, Fascher, p. 20.
93. Giittgemanns, pp. 253f.
94. Dibelius, p. 94.
95. Ibid. Cf. Beisser, NZSTh, pp. 197, 206.
96. Dibelius, pp. 46ff.
97. Beisser, NZSTh, p. 206.
98. Gadamer, p. 262.
99. Ibid., p. 263.
100. Ricoeur, HThR, pp. 30ff., 36.
101. Ibid., p. 31.
102. Cf. Picht, pp. 20ff.
103. Ibid., p. 11.
104. Ibid.
105. Ibid., p. 21.
106. Ibid., p. 12.
107. Girgensohn, Schriftbeweis, p. 2.
108. Girgensohn, Insp, pp. 12, 16f.
109. Ibid., pp. 13f. Similarly Ramm, Rev, p. 174.
110. Girgensohn, Insp, p. 14.
111. Procksch, AT, pp. If.
112. Sanders, p. 157. Cf. Liicke’s prophetic statement on p. 153: for lack of humility
historical criticism must “annihilate itself.”
113. Childs, Theology, pp. 139ff.; idem, Introduction, pp. 15ff.
114. Cf. Schlatter, Dogma, p. 115.
115. Cf. Bengel in my Joh-Offb, pp. 398f.
116. Thus e.g., Cappel or Bengel.
117. Cf. Schrenk, pp. 38f.; Abraham, pp. 97ff.; Dinkler, p. 9; Grant, p. 25.
118. Thus Schrenk, pp. 38f.
119. Thus e.g., also Packer, Fundamentalism, pp. S6ff.
120. E.g.,in Abraham, p. 101; Grant, p. 25; Schrenk, pp. 38ff.
121. Abraham, p. 101; Schrenk, p. 39.
122. E.g., in Abraham, p. 101, and Schrenk, pp. 38f.; Grant, p. 24.
 ENDNOTES @ 487

123. Schrenk, p. 101.

124. Cf. Grant, p. 61.
125. Hornig, pp. 165ff.
126. Moldaenke, pp. 6f.
127. Frick; p..5.
128. Dinkler, p. 8. -
129. Ebeling, ZThK, pp. 21, 41. Cf. Kiimmel, pp. 16f.
130. Ebeling, ZThK, pp. 39f., 42.
131. Cf. Hirsch, Hilfsbuch, p. 94; Ebeling, RGG, col. 252.
132. Cf. Hirsch, Hilfsbuch, p. 94.
133. Ebeling, RGG, col. 252; cf. Bornkamm, Luther, p. 207.
134. Philippi I, p. 105.
135. Scheel, p. 74.
136. Beisser, Claritas, p. 51.
137. Lonning, pp. 72ff.
138. Bring, pp. 39, 32.
139. Scheel, p. 60; Beisser, Claritas, pp. 125, 180.
140. Scholder, p. 15. Cf. further Beisser, NZSTh, pp. 206, 1; Girgensohn, Insp, p.
41; Popkin, pp. 6f.
141. Cf. Bornkamm, Vorreden, most of all on the antilegomena of the New
Testament.
142. Ebeling, RGG, col. 253.
143. Baur, An Hase, p. 8. Cf. already Meyer I, p. 29.
144. According to Grant, p. 155, Baur was “the most important New Testament
critic of the nineteenth century.”
145. Liebing, p. 310.
146. Ibid., pp. 310, 315.
147. Courth, pp. 63, 66.
148. Ibid., p. 65.
149. Ibid., p. 63.
150. Cf. Kiimmel, p. 149; Courth, p. 64.
151. Von Meyer, “a Cartesian friend of Spinoza” (Grant, p. 151).
152. Ibid.
153. Lessing, Beweis, p. 34.
154. Kiimmel, p. 76.
155. Cf. ibid., p. 74.
156. Aner, p. 4.
157. Wellhausen, p. 383.
158. Ibid., p. 375.
159. Ibid., p. 385.
160. Dibelius, p. 87.
161. Ibid., p. 46.
162. Ibid., pp. 46, 94.
163. Ibid., p. 82.
164. Cf. also Kiimmel, pp. 490ff.
165. Joest, Kanon, p. 192.
 e BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

. Ibid.
» Freipy56.
. McGinley, p. 22.
. Ibid., p. 154.
. Ibid., p. 22.
. Cf. still Vielhauer, p. 183, who in 1977 placed “patristic testimonies” and
“historical criteria” in opposition to one another, and gave preference to the
latter!
. Cf. Barr, p. 34; Meyer I, p. 6; Westermann, p. 18. Cf. Ebeling, ZThK, pp. 27,
31; Pinnock, p. 131. It is one of the enigmas of the history of theology that
Ebeling, ZThK, p. 2, can characterize the historical-critical method “as one of
the decisive essential features of so-called Neo-Pietism.”
. Reventlow, p. 34; Ebeling (previous note); Lehmann, p. 40.
. Cf. Aner, passim; Baur, An Hase, p. 22; Liebing, p. 315.
. Picht, p. 19. Cf. Ebeling, ZThK, p. 30.
. Picht, p. 15.
. Cf. Ebeling, ZThK, p. 27.
. Grant, p. 154. Likewise Mickelsen, p. 44. In the case of Baur cf. again Liebing,
pp. 310ff. Cf. still Ebeling, ZThK, p. 2.
. Schwaiger, p. 7.
. Westermann, p. 18.
. Ebeling, ZThK, p. 27.
. Frei, p. 55. Cf. Gnilka, pp. 473f.
. Ebeling, ZThK, p. 30. Cf. Dilschneider, pp. 13ff.; Hirsch V, p. 492.
. Ebeling, ZThK, p. 30.
. Ibid., p. 42. Cf. Barr, p. 34.
. Ebeling, ZThK, p. 45. Similarly also Bultmann.
. Ebeling, ZThK, p. 36.
. Ibid.
. Trillhaas, p. 476.
. Schadewaldt, p. 203.
. Ibid., pp. 202f. Cf. Latacz at the beginning of this chapter.
. Cf. Gigon, passim.
. The Allgemeiner Evangelisch-Protestantischer Missionsverein (1884), since
1929 called Ostasienmission; cf. Oehler, pp. 37ff.
. Semler I, p. 55; cf. Aner, pp. 270ff.
. Kiimmel, p. 476.
. Lessing, Axiomata, p. 63.
. Ibid., p. 73. Cf. the following pages.
. Ibid., p. 77.
. Aner, p. 151. Cf. Picht, p. 19; Gadamer, pp. 174, 186.
. Aner, p. 151.
. Wellhausen, p. 386.
. In Courth, p. 67. Cf. Kiimmel, p. 149.
. Gemmer/Messer, p. 18.
. Trillhaas, p. 1.
 ENDNOTES @ 489

. Ibid., p. 463.
. Ibid., pp. 475ff.
. Ibid., pp. 471, 492.
. Ibid., p. 500.
. Cf. Meyer I, p. 6; Aner, pp. 163f.
. Here Barr is Correct: “Its basic perceptions seem to derive from the
Renaissance.”
. Cf. here Vorlander, p. 246.
. Lessing, Menuschengeschlect,§4.
. Semler, according to Kiimmel, p. 76.
. Lessing, Axiomata, p. 69.
. Cf. ibid., pp. 47ff.
. Aner, p. 51.
. Merk, Anfange, p. 59.
. Cited by Kiimmel, pp. 124f. (Translation follows that by S. L. Gilmour and H.
C. Kee of Kiimmel, The New Testament: The History of the Investigation of
Its Problems [Nashville/New York, 1972], p. 105.)
. Cf. Kiimmel, pp. 250ff.
. Cf. Girgensohn, Schriftbeweis, pp. 37ff. Regarding F. C. Baur, Geiger stated
that for him “the autonomy of the subject” is a central concept (p. 227). Cf.
also Lerle, p. 27; Ebeling, ZThK, p. 30.
. Cf. Hirsch V, p. 3: “Faith in reason” had “by 1790 . . . become a major power.”
. Reventlow, pp. 33f.
. Conzelmann-Lindemann, p. 37.
. E.g., in Barr, p. 3 (1983).
. Scholder, p. 133. Cf. Gadamer, p. 255.
. Lehmann, p. 46.
. Neill, p. 4. Cf. Still Wilckens, p. 98.
. Gadamer, p. 255.
. Lessing, Beweis, p. 34.
. According to Kiimmel, p. 121.
. Ibid.
. Cf. Amberg, p. 86.
. Barr, p. 93.
. Lehmann, p. 46.
. Also long before now: see Liicke, p. 153.
. Hengel, Gesch, p. 9.
. Ibid., p. 54.
. Ibid., p. 55.
. Seeberg, p. 5.
. Reventlow, p. 34.
. Biirgener, p. 56, in his otherwise valuable work which even attempts a
harmony of the Easter narratives.
. Hengel, ThB, p. 60.
. Kuppler, p. 116.
Luz, e.g., pp. 141, 171.
490 e BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

245. Scholder, p. 7.
246. According to Strauss, p. 126; cf. p. 260.
247. Lessing, Axiomata, p. 67.
248. Ibid.
249, Hirsch V, p. 6.
250. Lessing, Erziehung, p. 8.
PREG On Luther cf. e.g., Bornkamm, Luther, p. 207.
paspoe Schmidt, Kreuzverhor, p. 51.
253. Ibid.
254. Cf. Amberg, p. 16.
PRY. Ibid., p. 86.
256. Dinkler, pp. 7f.
251. Moves in this direction have been made e.g., by Stuhlmacher.
258. Strauss, p. 260.
259. Ibid.
260. According to Merk, Anfange, p. 43; cf. Kiimmel, p. 65.
261. Merk, Anfange, p. 43.; Kiimmel, p. 66.
262. According to Kiimmel, p. 67.
263. Keil, p. 1.
264. Cf. Frei, pp. 17f.; Mickelsen, p. 44; Packer, Fundamentalism, pp. 111f.;
Pinnock, p. 131.
265. Cf. Bultmann, GV II, p. 231.
266. Ebeling, ZThK, p. 32.
267. Ibid.
268. Ibid.
269. Girgensohn, Schriftbeweis, p. 65.
270. Kiimmel, p. 98.
271. Ibid., p. 99.
22: Example: Dibelius, p. 13.
219: Girgensohn, Schriftbeweis, p. 3.
274. Dinkler, p. 7.
pepe Bultmann, GV II, pp. 231f.
276. Ibid., p. 232. The quote is from Augustine’s Confessions, I, 1: “Tu nos fecisti
ad Te.”
PAY Stuhlmacher, Verstehen, p. 253.
278. Cf. the Stuhlmacher-Grasser feud.
219, Kiimmel, pp. 69f.
280. Cf. Hornig, p. 68; Kiimmel, pp. 82ff.
281. Ktimmel, p. 83.
282. Ibid., pp. 116f.
283. Gass IV, p. 22.
284, Kiimmel, p. 389.
285. Ibid., p. 393.
286. Thus e.g., Hirsch I, p. 323.
287. According to Kiimmel, p. 60.
288. Ibid., p. 62.
 ENDNOTES @ 491

. Dinkler, p. 16.
. Amberg, p. 52.
. Cf. Kiimmel, pp. 466ff.
. Stuhlmacher, Verstehen, p. 57, and then pp. 52ff.
. Thus Weber, Schriftforschung, p. 31.
. An example would be his “Beweis des Geistes und der Kraft.”
. Weber, Schriftforschung, p. 126.
. Lessing, Beweis, p. 32. Cf. E. Hirsch’s judgments, which Amberg, p. 86, cites.
. Thus Geiger, p. 225, on F. C. Baur.
. Schloemann, p. 229.
. Hornig, p. 73.
Kiimmel, pp. 132f.
. Redlich, Traditions, p. 12.
. Ibid., p. 10.
. Cf. Le Brun, pp. 107ff.
E.g., Weber, Schriftforschung, p. 36.
. Dinkler, p. 16.
Schweizer, Ev Th, p. 344.
. Cf. Joest, Kanon, pp. 177, 184, 190.
. Ibid., pp. 177, 190, 196.
. Cf. Barr, pp. 106f.; Redlich, Traditions, p. 10.
. Cf. again Kiimmel, pp. 62ff.
. An example is once more Weber, Schriftforschung, p. 36.
. Dinkler, p. 16.
. Cf. Grasser, ZThK, pp. 211ff.; Trillhaas, p. 74.
. Thus Hesse, p. 294, in view of Ps 109. Similarly Hesse, AT, p. 107, in view of
Ex 32:27.
. Thus Stuhlmacher, Verstehen, p. 240.
. Cf. Dilschneider, pp. 13, 61; Schulz, p. 83.
. Schulz, p. 43.
. E.g., Semler, cf. Aner, p. 237.
. Aner, pp. 173f., 300.
. Ibid., p. 241.
. Ibid., pp. 285ff.
. Ibid., pp. 291 ff.
. Ibid., pp. 174f.
. Ibid., pp. 270ff.
. Cf. Aner, p. 200.
. Beisser, NZSTh, p. 197.
. Oepke, p. 29. Similarly Funk, p. 236.
. Geiger, p. 227.
. Ebeling, ZThK, p. 30.
» Fe rraub; p: itt.
. On the sources in Spinoza cf. again Strauss, pp. 106ff., 260f.
. Funk, p. 236.
. Cf. Aner, p. 4.
 e BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

. Baur, An Hase, p. 11.

. E.g. Strauss (Courth, p. 66; Barnikol, ZKG, 73, p. 118).
. According to Klatt, p. 261. Cf. Gunkel himself in Vorwort, p. v (1903).
. Esking, p. 6.
. Cf. Stuhlmacher, Verstehen, pp. 240ff.
. According to Aner, p. 24.
. Lessing, Erziehung, § 81-82.
. Ibid., § 80.
. Ibid., § 85-86.
. Aner, p. 49.
. Jerusalem, according to Aner, p. 162.
. Aner, pp. 49f.
. Ibid., p. 164.
. Barnikol, p. 32.
. According to Courth, p. 67.
. Cf. Ahn, pp. 66ff.
. Lehmann, p. 52.
. Cf. Stanton, pp. 60f.; Mickelsen, p. 44.
. Ebeling, RGG, col. 256.
. According to Stanton, p. 66.
. Cf. Bultmann, GV II, pp. 226f.
. Liebing, p. 310.
. Klatt, p. 261.
. Klauck, p. 100.
. Smend, p. 232.
. Ibid. Cf. Frick, pp. 13f.; Barnikol, p. 27 (on Baur).
. Meyer IV, pp. 428ff.
. In Klauck, p. 108.
. Twoexamples (which could easily be multiplied): Duhm’s interpretation of Isa
29:17ff., and Kasemann’s “criterion of underivability.”
. Stuhlmacher, Verstehen, p. 253.
. Rightly Bring, p. 38.
. Bultmann, GV II, pp. 231f.
. Ebeling, ZThK, p. 32.
. Ibid.
. Bultmann, GV II, p. 232.
. Barr, p. 84.
. Ibid., p. 46.
. Ibid., p. 47.
. Thus already Liicke, p. 144.
. Cf. Strauss, pp. 2, 106ff., 126, 247, 261.
. Cf. Hirsch V, p. 6.
. Trillhaas, p. 78. ‘
. Cited in Kiimmel, p. 74. Cf. Hornig, pp. 84ff.
. Cf. again Hornig, p. 84.
. Ibid., pp. 112ff.
 ENDNOTES @ 493

. Beisser, Claritas, p. 180; Cf. Luther, WA V, p. 184.

. Cf. Preus, p. 9.
. Axiomata I (p. 3).
. Axiomata, p. 48.
. Ibid.
. Ibid., pp. 48f. ¢
. Ibid., p. 63.
. Courth, p. 64.
. Amberg, p. 7.
. Dibelius, pp. 14, 46. Cf. Esking, pp. 49ff.
. Dobschiitz, p. 61.
. Jiingel, p. 210.
. Meyer I, p. 5.
. Cf. on Baur and his school Frankemille, p. 175; Geiger, p. 183. On Reimarus
see Merk, Anfange, p. 55.
. According to Esking, p. 8.
. Weber, Schriftforschung, p. 9 (following Semler?).
. Ebeling, ZThK, p. 13. Cf. Thurneysen, pp. 15, 21.
. Esking, p. 69.
. Hesse, AT, p. 14.
. Girgensohn, Grundriss, p. 61.
. Thurneysen, p. 13. Cf. Preus, p. vi.
Esking, p. 9.
. Stuhlmacher, Verstehen, p. 247. His essay in ThB, p. 158, says nothing
different.
. Stuhlmacher, Geist, p. 27.
. Ibid.
. Ibid. Cf. Stuhlmacher, ThB, pp. 157f.
. Blank, p. 9.
. Cf. also Beisser, NZSTh, p. 195.
. Cf. Falckenberg, p. 283.
. Wellhausen, p. 206.
. Stuhlmacher, Geist, pp. 27f.
. Cf. Robinson-Cobb, p. 50.
. Ibid., p. 94.
. Ebeling, ZThK, p. 27. Cf. Barr, p. 121; Blank, p. 9; also the statements by
Stuhlmacher above.
. Grasser, ZThK, p. 209.
. Funk in Robinson-Cobb, p. 298.
. Thus Jiingel, p. 266.
. Cf. Fascher, p. 18.
. Thus however Thurneysen, who with this statement represents the Barth
school.
418. Cf. Falckenberg, p. 285.
419. Cf. Jiingel, pp. 211ff.; Thurneysen, pp. 30, 25.
494 e@ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

420. Making use of Lessing’s term in Axiomata, p. 63, but in sense opposite from
Lessing’s.
421. Fascher, p. 18.
422. Fuchs in Robinson-Cobb, p. 182.
423. Liicke, p. 153.
424. Ebeling, ZThK, p. 6. Cf. Weber, Schriftforschung, p. 1.
425. Weber, Schriftforschung, pp. vii, 2.
426. Thus e.g., Thurneysen(!), p. 19; Ebeling, ZThK, pp. 31ff.; Girgensohn,
Schriftbeweis, p. 22; Dinkler, p. 17 (“never’!).
427. Thus e.g., Stuhlmacher, Verstehen, pp. 223, 243.
428. Ibid., pp. 222ff.; Stuhlmacher, ThB, pp. 157f.
429. Cf. Rendtorff, p. 10.
430. See e.g., Evangelische Mission, 1985, pp. 83ff.
431. Cf. Drewermann, pp. 18ff.; Wink, p. 7.
432. Cf. Beisser, NZSTh, p. 195.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN: Revelation and Method

1 Cf. Longenecker, pp. 67ff.
Pe Cf. Wellhausen, p. 135.
3. Cf. here Papias in Eusebius, H. E. III, 39, and in Irenaeus, Adv. Haer., V, 33.
See also the Hypotyposes of Clement of Alexandria, also entire documents
such as the Didache.
Cited according to the Jahrbuch der Theologischen Schule Bethel, 6, 1935, p.
128.
Diem, p. 45.
Girgensohn, Insp, p. 24.
Ibid.
Girgensohn, Schriftbeweis, pp. 2f.
Cf. Theologie und Dienst, vol. 43, 1985, in which the essays of Schlatter and
Jager are newly reprinted with an afterword by Heinzpeter Hempelmann.
Wrede, pp. 79f.
. Cf. Kimmel, p. 282.
. Ibid., p. 466.
. Cf. Heinrici, p. 739; Dobschiitz, pp. 19, 50.
Beck, Leitfaden, p. 10.
. Ibid., p. 9. Cf. Wach, Verstehen II, p. 209.
Beck, Leitfaden, p. 9.
Ibid.
. Cf. Wach, Verstehen II, pp. 206ff.
Cf. Lutz, p. 172; Heinrici, p. 739; Wach, Verstehen II, pp. 318ff.
Girgensohn, Reformgedanken, pp. 92f.
. Girgensohn, Insp, pp. 25f.
Ibid., pp. 42f.
. Girgensohn, Schriftbeweis, p. 60.
Ibid., p. 3.
. Ibid., p. 2.
 ENDNOTES @ 495

. Ibid., pp. 37-43.

. Ibid, p. 65.
. Ibid., p. 52.
Ibid.
Ibid., p. 63.
. Ibid., pp. 63f. .
. Ibid., p. 63.
. Ibid., pp. 73, 76.
. Ibid., pp. 73, 1.
» Abid. p.:/6; cf..p; 72.
. Girgensohn, Reformgedanken, p. 92.
. Girgensohn, Schriftbeweis, p. 73.
. Ibid., pp. 66-69.
. Theol Bl, 1928, 3, col. 64, 10.
. Torm, p. 17.
. Seeberg, p. 46.
. Seeberg, pp. 41ff.; cf. Torm, p. 24.
. Fascher, p. 28. Dobschiitz also mentioned that Girgensohn came to his
pneumatic exegesis through Elias Schrenk (p. 49). Schrenk, born 1831 in
Hausen ob Verena, Wiirttemberg, was one of the fathers of the awakening and
cofounder of tent evangelism. On Girgensohn’s own appeal to Schrenk cf.
Insp, p. 43.
Girgensohn, Insp, p. 16. The parallel to K. Barth’s formulation in the foreword
of his Romans commentary is striking.
. Cf. Dobschiitz, p. 19.
. Girgensohn, Insp, p. 21.
. Ibid., p. 40.
. Stressed in Girgensohn’s Reformgedanken, p. 90.
. Girgensohn, Insp, p. 45.
. Cf. Stuhlmacher, Verstehen, pp. 253f.
. Girgensohn, Insp, pp. 21ff.
From the second edition, 1921, p. 42, cited by Torm, pp. 29, 1.
. Girgensohn, Insp, pp. 61ff.
Cf. Amberg, pp. 47ff.; Fascher, p. 27; Lerle, p. 26; Seeberg, p. 39.
. Girgensohn, Insp, p. 27.
Cf. ibid., p. 64, and idem, Reformgedanken, p. 90. See also Lerle, p. 26.
Girgensohn, Insp, p. 28; idem, Schriftbeweis, p. 73.
. Girgensohn, Insp, p. 27; cf. p. 18.
Cf. Dobschiitz, pp. 51, 63, appealing to J. Behm; also Fascher, p. 28; Oepke,
pp. 24, 9.
Fascher, p. 27.
. Procksch, CuW, p. 145.
. Ibid., p. 150.
. Ibid.
Ibid.
. Ibid., p. 156.
496 e BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

. Procksch, AT, pp. 13, 15.

. Ibid., p. 17.
. Ibid., p. 36.
. Oepke, p. 26.
Ibid., pp. 17ff.
. Ibid., p. 36.
. Ibid., p. 18.
. Ibid., p. 19.
. Ibid., p. 36.
. Ibid., pp. 37, 43.
. Cf. Frey, Ansatz, pp. 156, 1.
. Ibid., p. 178.
. Ibid., p. 180.
. Ibid., p. 155.
. Ibid., p. 156.
. Ibid., p. 171.
. Ibid., p. 170.
. Ibid., p. 154; Frey, Krise, pp. 86ff.
. Frey, Ansatz, pp. 170, 167.
Ibid., pp. 168f.
. Ibid., p. 169.
Ibid., pp. 161, 166.
. Ibid., pp. 163ff.
. Ibid., pp. 175, 173.
Ibid., pp. 177f.
. Ibid., p. 157.
. Ibid.
. Ibid., p. 158 (appealing to Luther and Barth!).
Ibid.
. Cf.e.g., ibid., pp. 154, 158.
. Ibid., p. 158.
. Ibid., p. 154.
. Ibid., p. 169.
. Cf. Frey, Krise, p. 81.
Cf. ibid., pp. 80ff.
. Richter, p. 18.
. Ibid., p. 9.
. Ibid.
. Wolff, p. 140.
. Merk, TRE, p. 395.
. Gunneweg, WPKG, p. 16. Cf. Stuhlmacher, Verstehen, p. 223. Hartlich, p.
476, is still more radical: The historical-critical method is “the only [one]
possible”! .
. Richter, p. 19.
. Philippi I, p. 110.
. Ramm, Interpr, pp. 60ff.
 ENDNOTES @ 497

110. Henkel, p. 2.
111. Ibid., p. 6.
112. Cf. ibid., pp. 14f.
113. Dobschiitz, pp. 28f.
114. Oepke, p. 20.
115. Dibelius, p. 97.
116. Ibid., p. 46.
117. Ibid., p. 97.
118. Esking, pp. 121, 81. Esking himself turned decisively against a “dualistic
conception of the Word of God,” or against a dualism of methods (p. 80).
119. Boeckh, p. 80.
120. Ibid., p. 81.
E21. Wolff, p. 143.
122: Stuhlmacher, ThB, p. 156.
123. Ibid. Cf. p. 153.
124. Ibid., pp. 157f.
125. On the different situation in the Anglo-Saxon realm cf. Travis, p. 155; Ellis, p.
238.
126. Dobschiitz, pp. 33ff.
127. Ibid.
128. Riesenfeld, pp. 7ff. For the continuance of the impetus his work provided cf.
R. Riesner, Jesus als Lehrer.
129, Riesenfeld, pp. 23f.; cf. pp. 15ff., 28.
130. Ibid., pp. 14f., 19f.
1. Ibid., pp. 21, 26.
132. Schiirmann, Untersuchungen, p. 46.
133. Ibid., pp. 45f.
134. Ibid., p. 47. Cf. the dissertation by that name authored by R. Riesner (cf. n. 128
above).
135. Ibid., p. 56.
136. Ibid., p. 45.
137; Subtitle in Schiirmann’s Tod Jesu, p. 325.
138. Schiirmann, Jesu Tod, p. 359.
132. Giittgemanns, p. 36.
140. Ibid., pp. 253f.
141. Subtitle of “Evangelist und Gemeinde.”
142. Frankemille, p. 180. Cf. the axioms in Travis, pp. 153f.
143. Richter, pp. 17f.
144. Yri, pp. 17f. (“a proper historical-theological methodology”).
145. Cf. Childs, Theology, pp. 91ff.; idem, Introduction, passim.
146. Wink, p. 7.
147. Not even Frey, who wants to proceed methodically when it comes to individual
passages!
148. Vermes, p. 95: “a fundamental unity of exegetical tradition.”
149. Cf. Longenecker, p. 28, with Goppelt, Typos, p. 67.
150. Cf. again Longenecker, pp. 29, 19, along with Heinisch, pp. 47, 52ff.
498 e BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

151. Daube, passim; Grant, p. 24; Longenecker, pp. 67ff. Travis, p. 159, in
disagreement with J. Jeremias, calls attention to the fact that even allegory is
used by Jesus.
. Longenecker, p. 67.
. Ibid., pp. 68f.
. Cf. D. A. Carson, Matthew, The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, 8 (1984), p.
114.
. Cf. Riesenfeld, p. 24; Schiirmann, Untersuchungen, pp. 47ff.
. Cf. Daube, passim; Travis, p. 159 (referring to H. Riesenfeld and B.
Gerhardsson).
. Goppelt, Typos, pp. 70ff., 239; Grant, pp. 54f.
. Cf. Grant, pp. 33, 40.
. Ibid., pp. 31, 33; cf. Goppelt, Typos, p. 152.
Longenecker, p. 126; Heinisch, p. 35; Grant, p. 31.
. Cf. Chmiel, pp. 155ff.; Heinisch, pp. 36ff.
. Bonwetsch, passim, most of all pp. 42ff.
. Cf. Kramer II, p. 380.
Boeckh, p. 80.
. Cf. Nestle-Aland, Novum Testamentum Graece, 26th ed., p. 775, where New
Testament references to Greek authors are catalogued.
. One is reminded of what value Beck placed on this unity of doctrine and
praxis!
. Childs, Theology, pp. 139ff.
. Strecker, p. 19.
; Eg. ibid. px2.
. Lehmann, pp. 75ff.
. Baur, An Hase, p. 8. Cf. on Riickert, 1831, Heinrici, p. 738.
. Wrede, p. 9.
. Cf. Esking, p. 6; Troeltsch, passim.
. Cf. Robinson, New Look, pp. 338ff.
. So Diem, p. 16. Much more crassly Hartlich, pp. 467ff.
. Gunneweg, WPKG, pp. 13, 16.
. Strecker, pp. 2f.
. Schloemann, p. 231.
. Funk, p. 19.
. Hasel, p. 19.
. ten p. 1:
. Cf. Kihn, p. 122.
. Cf. Heinrici, p. 737.
. Cf. Dobschiitz, pp. 33, 49.
. Keil, pp. viiif., 9. The complete title runs Lehrbuch der Hermeneutik des Neuen
Testaments nach Grundsdtzen der grammatisch-historischen Interpretation
(Handbook of Hermeneutics According to the Basic Principles of
Grammaitical-Historical Interpretation). Hasel’s claim (pp. 28f.) that Gottlob
Philipp Christian Kaiser was in 1813 the first to propose the “grammatico-
historical method” needs to be revised.
 ENDNOTES @ 499

a,
Freispr2:
.Dilthey, Schriften V, p. 324.
.Moldaenke, p. 121.
.See Moldaenke, p. 300: “Spiritus s. et Pater ipse per os Prophetarum et
Apostolorum locutus est conscripsitque sacram Scripturam” (“The Holy Spirit
and the Father himself have spoken through the mouth of the prophets and the
Apostles and have written the sacred Scripture”). Cf. Keller, pp. 44f., 139.
. Moldaenke, pp. 351f. Cf. Keller, pp. 168, 109.
. Moldaenke, p. 67. Cf. Keller, pp. 121f.
. Moldaenke, pp. 573, 484.
. Ibid., p. 59.
. Cf. ibid., p. 190.
. Ibid., pp. 476ff., 306ff.
. Ibid., pp. 484ff.
. Ibid., p. 497. Cf. Keller, p. 122.
. Moldaenke, p. 495.
. Ibid., pp. 519ff.
. Ibid., p. 492.
. Ibid., p. 518.
. Ibid., pp. 195ff.
. Ibid., pp. 127, 617f.
. Ibid., pp. 617f., 144f. Cf. Keller, p. 134.
. Moldaenke, pp. 197ff., 206f.
. Ibid., p. 203.
. Ibid., p. 207.
. Ibid., p. 572. Moldaenke lists the following as individual central components:
Gospel, Decalogue, confessions, catechism, salvation history with creation,
fall, and redemption (pp. 562ff.; cf. p. 356).
. Hasel, p. 20 (with Dentan). Cf. Merk, Anfange, pp. 49ff.
. Cf. the themes in Preus, p. xvii, as well as Preus, passim; Ratschow I, pp. 101ff.
Cf. Colovius, Systema Locorum Theologicorum, 1655-77; K6nig, Theologia
Positiva Acroamatica, 1665; Hollaz, Examen Theologiae Acroamaticae, ed. by
Teller, 1750; Quenstedt, Theologia Didacticopolemica, 1685.
Fret, pols:
. It remains a mystery how Frei (p. 4) can make Coccejus and Bengel into
forerunners of historical criticism.
. Kramer II, p. 396.
. Frei, p. 38.
. Cf. KramerI, p. 5.
. Ibid., p. 60; cf. Kramer II, p. 388.
. Kramer II, p. 388.
. Kramer I, p. 5.
. Kramer I, p. 152.
. He is senselessly therefore always being styled as one of the fathers of
historical criticism. Thus unfortunately even Frei, pp. 39f.; Stuhlmacher,
Verstehen, pp. 139f.
500 e@ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

221. Cf. Kihn, p. 77.

ees Cf. my Joh-Offb, pp. 416f.
VAS Frei, p. 40.
224. Cf. Jiingel, pp. 171ff.
225: Cf. H. Burkhardt, Wiederkehr der Religiositdt?, 1990.
226. Biichsel, p. iii.
PPA Stuhlmacher, Verstehen, p. 142. Cf. regarding the newly wakened interest in
Hamann the treatises by E. Biichsel, 1988; H. Hempelmann, 1988; K. H.
Michel, Anfinge, 1985; H. Lindner, 1988; M. Seils, 1987; along with the
bibliography in Bayer, TRE, p. 403 and Lindner, pp. 47-49. Cf. further
Hempelmann, p. 18.
. “Entkleidung und Verklarung,” according to Seils, p. 495.
. Thus C. M. Wieland, cited in Seils, pp. 390, 1.
. “Entkleidung und Verklarung,” in Seils, pp. 498, 500. Cf. Bayer, TRE, p. 399;
E. Biichsel, p. v.
. Lindner, pp. 27f.
. “Uber die Auslegung der Heiligen Schrift” (N I, pp. 5f.).
INTE pr or:
. “Gedanken iiber meinen Lebenslauf,” in Seils, p. 62.
ING pss:
. InSeils, pp. 63, 184 (in “Gedanken iiber meinen Lebenslauf” or “Die Magi aus
Morgenlande’”).
. Cf. note 234.
. Cf. again note 234. Cf. Jer 38:13.
. From the first letter in “Kleeblatt Hellenistischer Briefe,” in Seils, p. 263; cf.
p. 262.
Ibid., in Seils, p. 265.
. Nicely worked out in Lindner, pp. 26f.
. In Seils, p. 235.
. Ibid.
Ibid.
. In “Biblischen Betrachtungen eines Christen,” in Seils, p. 13. Cf. Michel,
Anfange, pp. 114f.
In “Gedanken tiber meinen Lebenslauf,” in Seils, p. 62.
. Inthe first of the Hellenistische Briefe in Seils, p. 263.
. Lindner, p. 28; Hempelmann, p. 10; Michel, Anfange, p. 115. Cf. Biichsel, p.
33:
. Cf. note 248 along with Lindner, pp. 16, 18; Hempelmann, p. 29; Michel,
Anfange, p. 120.
. In “Golgatha und Scheblimini,” in Seils, p. 238.
. “Biblischen Betrachtungen eines Christen” (N I, p. 5).
. In “Gedanken iiber meinen Lebenslauf,” in Seils, P.62.
. Tbid., p. 61.
. In “Biblischen Betrachtungen eines Christen,” in Seils,p. 24.
. In the first of the Hellenistische Briefe in Seils, p. 264.
. Cf. E. Biichsel, p. 43.
 ENDNOTES @ 501

- In“Komnxompax,” in Seils, pp. 217f.; cf. Seils, p. 235.

. In “Die Magi aus Morgenlande,” in Seils, pp. 182f.
. In “Biblischen Betrachtungen eines Christen” (N I, pp. 5f.).
. Cf. Lindner, p. 18.
. “Am Himmelfahrts-Tage, 4 May 1758.” In Seils, p. 20.
. In “Gedanken tiber meinen Lebenslauf,” in Seils, p. 60. Cf. E. Biichsel, p. 48.
. E. Biichsel, p. 59.
. Cf. N III, pp. 277ff.; Bayer, TRE, p. 401.
. E. Biichsel, p. 99.
. Ibid., p. 41.
. Itis better to avoid the expression “philological-historical work” (Stuhlmacher,
Verstehen, p. 141) in view of its weighty associations from the history of
theology. It does not fit what Hamann has in mind.
. Cf. Lindner, pp. 18, 22, along with Hempelmann, p. 61, and Michel, Anfange,
polls:
. Bayer, TRE, p. 397.
. Hempelmann, p. 17.
. Cf. Lindner, pp. 26f. with Hempelmann, pp. 14ff.
. Cf. Hempelmann, pp. 11ff.; Lindner, p. 25; Michel, Anfange, p. 114.
. Cited and discussed in Lindner, pp. 28f.
x Ibid, p.29:
. NII, p. 43. Cf. Hempelmann, p. 11.
. Other critical questions in E. Biichsel, pp. 96, 99.
. Cf. the opinion of Wach, Verstehen II, p. 318.
Maz ONT
. Beck, Gedanken, pp. 84, 98f., 179.
280. Cf. Lutz, p. 172; Wach, Verstehen II, p. 332; also Wach, Verstehen II, pp.
206ff. on Beck.
281. Wach, Verstehen II, p. 332.
. Ibid.
. Heinrici, pp. 738f.; Wach, Verstehen II, p. 206.
. Wach, Verstehen II, p. 206.
. Ibid., pp. 209, 327f.
286. Schéffler, p. 67. Schéffler names the following as examples (among others):
Bodmer, Goggsched, Klopstock, Lessing, Schlézer, Lichtenberg, Hdlty,
Biirger, Lenz.
287. Schlatter, Dogma, p. 367.
. Hasel, p. 43.
. Dobschiitz, p. 56. Cf. Riesner and Bittner, in Bockmiihl, pp. 36ff. and p. 116.
. On Schlatter cf. Egg, pp. 108, 135, 239. Cf. Neuer, Schlatter, pp. 5Off.
. Schlatter, Dogma, p. 369. Cf. Egg, p. 134.
. On Schlatter cf. his Dogma, pp. 364ff.
. Cf. ibid., pp. 372ff.
. Ibid., p. 93.
. Ibid., p. 109.
. Ibid., p. 199.
 e BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

. Egg, p. 242.
. Schlatter, Dogma, p. 5.
. Ibid., p. 12.
. Ibid.
. Cf. Egg, p. 82.
. Schlatter, Dogma, p. 89.
. Ibid., pp. 12, 18, 19, 41, 94.
. Ibid., pp. 25ff.
. Ibid., pp. 15, 38ff.
abide DS 27:
Sclbid prize
. Ibid., p. 18.
. Ibid., p. 19.
. Ibid., p. 98. Cf. Egg, p. 82; also Neuer, Zusammenhang, pp. 43ff., 139ff.
. Cf. Beck, Gedanken, pp. 98f., 118.
. Schlatter, Dogma, pp. 20ff.
. Ibid., p. 14.
. Thus ibid., p. 370.
. Ibid., p. 367. Cf. Neuer, Schlatter, pp. S5f.
. Cf. Schlatter, Dogma, pp. 364ff.
. Ibid., pp. 591, 217.
. Cf. Schlatter, Christus, pp. 226ff.
Gf. Egg..p. 135.
. Schlatter, Dogma, p. 14.
« ‘Abid:; p21.
. Ibid., p. 525.
. Cf. Hasel, pp. 36ff.
. Cf. ibid.; Wach, Verstehen II, p. 359.
. Wach, Verstehen II, p. 360.
. Cf. Beyschlag, p. 9. The quote is from Hofmann, Der Schriftbeweis, I, 2d ed.
(1857), p. 10.
. Wach, Verstehen II, p. 367.
. Ibid., p. 372.
. Ibid., p. 369.
. Ibid., pp. 370ff.
. Ibid., pp. 366f. Cf. Hofmann, p. 5.
. Hofmann, p. 9 (Biblische Hermeneutik).
. Wach, Verstehen II, p. 364. Cf. the similar judgment of Beyschlag (p. 9).
. Joest, TRE, p. 732.
. Ibid.
. Ibid.
. Wenham, pp. 84f.
. L6nning, pp. 13, 10. ‘
. Gratefully we can report that P. Stuhlmacher in the 2d ed. of his Verstehen (cf.
pp. 199, 238ff.) toned down his antifundamentalist polemic. How deeply the
ruts run can still be seen in Joest’s “critical assessment” in TRE, pp. 736ff.
 ENDNOTES @ 503

340. Cf. Cole, pp. 52ff.; Packer, Fundamentalism, p. 28.

341. Packer, Fundamentalism, p. 29.
342. Joest, TRE, p. 732.
343. Ibid., p. 734.
344. Cf. here Machen, pp. 75, 78; Warfield, Inspiration and Authority, pp. 110ff.;
Warfield, Insp, pp. 280ff.; Chicago, Art. 16; Geisler, Decide, p. 32.
345. Cf. Packer, Fundamentalism, p. 25.
346. Machen, p. 73.
347. Thus e.g., ibid., pp. 73f.; Ramm, Interpr, p. 86; Henry IV, p. 160; Geisler,
Decide, p. 71.
348. Thus Ramm, Interpr, p. 86; Chicago, Art. 6.
349. Thus Chicago Short Statement, number 4.
350. Thus Geisler, Decide, p. 71.
Sods Machen, pp. 73, 1. Cf. Warfield, Divine, pp. 275ff.; Henry IV, p. 202; Chicago,
Art. 8 and the exposition; Geisler, Decide, p. 75.
Sey Machen, p. 73. Cf. Warfield, Divine, p. 276.
353: Warfield, Divine, p. 278.
354. Cf. Marshali, Insp, pp. 40ff.; also Carson, Developments, p. 45.
330! Machen, p. 75; cf. p. 74.
356. Geisler, Decide, p. 22.
Lage Thus e.g., Ramm, Interpr, pp. 183ff.; Geisler, Decide, pp. 75, 102ff.; Packer,
Battle, pp. 44ff.; Henry IV, pp. 167ff.; Pinnock, pp. 222ff.; Chicago, Art. 12ff.
358. Cf. Chicago, Art. 17 (“in its entirety”) and 19 (“full inerrancy of Scripture”).
359. Geisler, Decide, p. 76, according to John R. Rice, Our God-Breathed Book—
The Bible (1969).
360. Kropatscheck, p. 425; cf. p. 434.
361. According to Preus, p. 77.
362. Cf. Preus, p. 77; Ratschow I, p. 71.
363. Cf. Keller, p. 132.
364. Cf. Warfield, Inerrancy, pp. 270ff.
365. Carson, Developments, pp. 24f.; Ramm, Interpr, p. 119.
366. Packer, Fundamentalism, pp. 115ff.
367. Marshall, Insp, p. 72; cf. also pp. 7Of.
368. Cf. again ibid., pp. 7Off.
369. Cf. Machen, pp. 77ff.; Chicago, Art. 3.
370. Cf. Chicago, Art. 14; Berkhof, p. 53; Mickelsen, pp. 86ff.; Packer, Battle, p.
41; Ramm, Interpr, p. 186.
371; Thus Packer, Battle, p. 41, and Berkhof, p. 53.
312, Cf. Chicago, Art. 5; Berkhof, p. 53; Pinnock, pp. 175ff.; Ramm, Interpr, pp.
111ff.
a1. Machen, p. 70: “centre and core.”
374. Ibid., p. 74.
Bydep Ibid., p. 70.
376. Chicago, Art. 8, 18.
ST7. Henry IV, p. 168. Cf. IV, p. 68, and Packer, Battle, p. 52.
378. On the term moderate criticism cf. Merk, TRE, p. 388.
504 e@ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

379. See the essay by R. Smend.

380. Thus Stuhlmacher, Verstehen, pp. 183ff., appeals expressly to “post-critical
Scripture interpretation” and the essay by Smend (previous note).
381. Smend, pp. 233, 236.
382. Those engaged in this line of thinking include e.g., Hahn, Hengel, Merk,
Stuhlmacher.
383. Both citations from Merk, TRE, p. 395 (1980).
384. H. M. Barth, col. 241ff.
385. Ibid., col. 241f.
386. Stuhlmacher, ThB, p. 155; cf. Stuhlmacher, Jesus, p. 39.
387. Stuhlmacher, ThB, pp. 133ff.
388. Cf. Stuhlmacher, Verstehen, pp. 34, 47ff.
389. Stuhlmacher, ThB, p. 138.
390. Ibid., p. 153.
ei Stuhlmacher, Verstehen, pp. 253ff.
392. Here we may cite B. S. Childs as an example from outside Continental
theological circles. He places weight most of all on the final form of the text
in a so-called canonical approach.
. Examples are Barr, Grisser, Hartlich, Strecker, and recently Utzschneider, pp.
182ff.
. Thus Hartlich, p. 483; Smend, pp. 226f.
. Thus Strecker, pp. 19f.; Joest, Kanon, p. 184.
. Hirsch V, p. 492.
. Ibid.
. Ibid., p. 6.
. Merk, Anfange, p. 52.
H. M. Barth, col. 242, 252.
. Strecker, p. 31.
. Stuhlmacher, Jesus, p. 17.
. Stuhlmacher, ThB, p. 158.
Hartlich, p. 473.
. Ibid., p. 478.
Cf. here Stuhlmacher, Verstehen, p. S6f.
. Stuhlmacher, ThB, p. 158, and idem, Jesus, pp. 16f.
. Blank, pp. 7f.
. Schottroff, p. 253.
. Thus Stuhlmacher, ThB, pp. 157f., especially n. 85 on p. 158.
. Reinhard, p. 102.
. Cf. Hartlich, pp. 474f.; Strecker, p. 21.
. Strecker, p. 22.
. Stuhlmacher, Verstehen, pp. 91, 222.
. Schottroff, p. 255.
. R. Simon traced everything back to one authority: the teaching office of the
church. On Enlightenment theology cf. Aner, passim.
. Cf. Wach, Verstehen II, p. 294.
. Rothe, according to Wach, Verstehen II, p. 296.
 ENDNOTES @ 505

419. Beck, Gedanken, p. 179.

420. Stuhlmacher, Jesus, pp. 16f.
421. Stuhlmacher, Verstehen, pp. 240, 249f.
422. Cf. Fiir Arbeit und Besinnung, Zeitschrift fiir die Evang. Landeskirche in
Wiirttemberg, 41, 1987, p. 90.
423. Ibid.,p.95.
424. Schottroff, p. 251.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN: Developing a Biblical-Historical Interpretation

Most of all in my Das Ende der historisch-kritischen Methode (The End of the
Historical-Critical Method).
In this connection cf. also Moltmann, Ev Komm, passim.
Therefore the church’s interest in the calling of theological teacher-scholars
should be acute and vital, not hesitant and bashful.
Cf. Joest, Kanon, pp. 184ff.
Barr, p. 108.
Beck, Leitfaden, pp. 9f.
. Mussner, p. 25.
Wilckens, p. 98.
Melzer, p. 14: “The foreign word ‘meditation’ is unclear.” Melzer proposes
rather the designation “internalization” (p. 16).
Ibid., pp. 11ff., speaks of “meditation as a way inside,” “meditation as self-
absorbtion,” “meditation as internalization.” Cf. ibid., pp. 77ff.
. The phrase “locating the text” from my book Das Ende der historisch-
kritischen Methode is to be abandoned in favor of the more precise phrase
“determining the text.”
. Cf. Nestle-Aland, Novum Testamentum Graece, 26th ed. (1979), p. 2, along
with Holmes, passim.
. Nestle-Aland, p. 3.
Ibid., p. 5.
. Ibid.
Very clearly expressed again by Weder, pp. 27, 68, 74: “Methodologically it
is essential to exclude God as historical factor” (p. 74).
Cf. Thurneysen, p. 20.
Thus Stuhlmacher only adds one more to the established Troeltschian
principles; he replaces none of them.
Also in Weder, pp. 48ff., 73ff.
. Pannenberg, p. 22. Pannenberg, however, does not orient himself by revelation
but on a concept of universal history that incorporates revelation.
. Weder, p. 74.
. Ibid., pp. 48ff.
. Cf. Bultmann, Mythologie, passim.
Bultmann, Die Geschichte der synoptischen Tradition, 6th ed. (Tiibingen,
1964), pp. 263ff.
Cf. Strasburger, p. 475.
Pannenberg, p. 25.
506 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

27. Weder, pp. 69f.

28. Thus e.g., ibid., pp. 48, 73.
29. Ibid., p. 96.
30. Keil, pp. 123ff.
31. Ibid., p. 124.
32. Cf. Moldaenke, p. 597.
33. Cf. Kramer I, p. 60.
34. Beck, Gedanken, p. 159.
35. Beyschlag, pp. 27ff., especially p. 31.
_ Scripture Index

105, 228
228
21, 213,373
239
280
175
106
283
81, 283
81
81
218
393

102, 104, 155, 398

240 102
175 236
81 94, 235, 236, 329
103
94, 218, 236, 329
239
508 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

1:8 103 194

8:31 ff. 103 194
10:12ff. Ppa
21:45 81, 229
24:2ff. 81, 82, 396 82, 396
82, 396
Judges 103
19 112-13 59
63
1 Samuel 393
10:25 103 76
16:7 59 143, 405
143
59, 387
2 Samuel 280
EG 280 283
DED) 103 229
239
I Kings 239
22 235 283
2S 103 92
Sit 234 103
22: 10ff. 329 59, 103
22:19ff. PRS, 63
60
63
103, 201, 279, 396 59, 143, 185, 387
194 59
103 59
103 a9
103 139: 13ff. 76

1 Chronicles Proverbs
16:40 103 39, 279
28:11 103 59
28:19 103 143
279
283
2 Chronicles 102
Neots 103
Ecclesiastes
Ezra
3:19 129
4-6 390 bya) 22,29
9:2 129
Nehemiah
7:68f. Isaiah
61 \ 405
Esther 1b 242
7-9 2:1 242
4:14 6:1 242
 SCRIPTURE INDEX @ 509

6:1 ff. 34 18:1ff. 279

6:5ff. 23 18:20 201
6: 9ff. 76 36:27 264
A 242
8:1 133 :
8:16 103, 134 Hed
7 264
14:28 242 .
20:1 %
242 11 232, 392
21:10 234 DOM 81, 239
28:9ff. 329 22KE. 76
36:1 242 2:22
2:24
34
34
39:1 242 7 134
40:8 111 T:1Sff. 234
41:22f. 86 ;
41:22ff.
,
34, 235 9:2 63, 103, 134
42:1 393 9:24 ff.
10:8-11
265
210
42:8f. 239 :
42:93 235 We
12:4
3103, 134
43:8f. 86 :
43:9 34
43:9ff. 235 Hosea
44:7 34, 86 2:16ff. 82
45:5-7 81 2:17 396
53:1 AM 8:12 103
55:10f. 234, 239 8:13 82
55:11 218 9:3 ff. 82
61:1 402 9: LOff. 396
61:1f. 91 lei 396
12:4 ff. 396
Jeremiah
36 103, 133 Amos
1:9 34, 234 3:8 234
al 234 9:7ff. 82
15: 10ff. 234
23:9ff. 235 Jonah
23:28 234 3 243
31:29f. 201 1:10 243
31:31ff. 264 3:5 243

ee oe 3:6-9 243
36:1f. 133

see
36:4
tl
133
Micah
é 6:4f. 396
es
36:27f. 133 6:8: 103, ’ 183
36:27-32 133
36:32 133 Habakkuk
38:11-13 348 2:1 239

Ezekiel Zechariah
1 240 4:2 107
2 240 4:10 107, 245
510 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

4:14 245 265, 329

183; 237, 327
Malachi 175
330909) 82, 155, 396 327
4:4 103 183,237, 327
236
329
Matthew 236
283 236
243 237, 265
194 129
106, 245
355
103, 125, 234
50
242
76
125
237
242
242 129
107 89
392 89, 129
329 50
SIG eee 145
329 144
201 144, 145
332 219, 236
199 174, 265, 329, 388
175, 176, 193, 264 27
114, 144 236
155, 237, 263, 265, 329 329
265 236
111, 143, 175, 176, 327 129
263 219
176 236
201 383
327 201
1 145, 237
264 145
408
327
329
202
243
243
IRS
329
183, 237
237
Sey)
107
B52
327
329
332
 SCRIPTURE INDEX @ 511

22:15ff. 388 7: 1ff. 174

22:16 175 7:9Ff. 176
22:23ff. 265 10:1 ff. 174
22:23-46 287 10:19 175
22:31 327 12:28-34 74
22:31f. 103, 175, 327
22:36 o) 16ae
22:40 165 i 106
22:4 1ff. 92, 329, 388 1:14 105, 134-35, 224, 240,
22:42 175, 237 388
22:43 103, 176 1:2 106, 135, 225
23:26. 50, 287 1:3 63, 106, 135, 138, 240
23:23 200 1:4 106
23:29ff. 236 1:5 242
23:34 107, 138, 330 1:70 125, 134
23:35 150 2:1f. 242
23:37ff. 236 3: 1fF. 242
23:39 194 4: 16ff. 237
24: 1ff. 236, 265 4:16-21 403
24:14 183 4:17 91
24:15 134, 265, 327 4:2] 91, 265
24:22 239 4-23 405
24:24 329 4:31ff. 405
24:25 239 5:1 ff. 219
24:32ff. 194 9:57-60 202
24:35 111 10:7 107
24:36 245 10:16 158, 176
24:42ff. 201 10:16f. 106
25:5 201 10:26 327
25:19 201 HAE EPA
26:39 176 11:20 236
26:52ff. 195 11:27f. 332
26:56 176, 237 12:11 332
26:63 332 12:11f. 332
27:2 242 12:20f. 332
27:12 332 12:28 327
27:14 332 15:11-32 278
27:63 236 16: 1ff. 388
28:11f. 229 18: 1ff. 389
28:17 229 19:3 219
28: 18ff. 201 21:12f. 332
28:19 107 21:14 332
28:19F. 332 21:24 392
28:20 327, 330 23:1 ff. 242
23:7ff. 242
Mark 23:27-31 332
4 243 24:1 229
1:15 192 24:11 229
2:28 176, 264 24: 136f. 219
4:35ff. 243 24:19 236
4:39 243 24: 25ff. 237
512 e BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

24:25-27 329 8:49 279

24:27 190 8:56 237
24:27ff. 359 9:17 236
24:34 229 9:39ff. 59
24:38ff. 229 10:34 175
24:44 103, 150 10:34 ff. 175, 237, 329
24:44f, 155, 190 10:34-36 327
24:44 ff. M75 2510 10:35 103, 114, 144, 155, 175,
24:44-47 329 190, 237, 265
24:4 8ff. 106 10:38 219, 229, 236
11:26 280
John 11:47 236
1 387 ESET: 234
1:3 80 12:16 129
1:11 7 13:18 |
1:18 25 13:19 239
1:356f. 219, 283 14:6 59, 105, 185
1:39 219 14: 16ff. 56
2:13ff. 243 14:26 105, 359
2:18 236 14:29 239
2:18ff. 236 15:15 235
2:22 129, 359 16:1 239
2:25 59 16:4 239
3:1ff. 56 16:8ff. 333
3:2 236 16:12 129
3.13. 37 16:13 50, 105, 156, 176
3: 14ff. 265 16:13f. 359
4:5ff. 388 16: 13¢f. 56
4:19 236 16:25ff. 129
4:22 194 AP 105
4:34 265 18:9 107, 359
5:37ff. 176 18:32 107, 359
5:39 50, 155, 183, 190,237, 19:35 105
265, 329 20:9 329
5:46 175 20:14 219
6:14 236 20:19-21 219
6:32f. 175 20:21 138
6:38 265 20:24 ff. 229
6:45 50 20:30 225
6:68 52 20:30f. 128, 229
6:68f. 358 20:31 205
6:69 505355 21:4 409
7:17 58, 59, 236 21:11 245
7: 19Ff. 329 21:23 129, 156
7:23 327 21:24 105, 106, 107, 138, 225
7:38 190 21:24¢. 128
8:12 59, 387 225 225
8:32 59 35 , 229
8:36 59
8:46 175 Acts
8:48 236 2 106
 SCRIPTURE INDEX @ 513

396 332
245 332
405 332
103 332
219 103
85
216 «
331 355
0. 1-3 395
229, 236 191,395
236 191
236 380
TA, 13.17, 379 138
50 102, 190
60, 156, 190, 280, 330 180
331 PAR
236 260
236 102, 104
236 104
60 202
106 177, 190
142 201
265 283
236 80
280 279
332 177
331 177
236 180
236 10:6ff. 183
51 11:17ff. 19]
330 221k 330
12:4 ff. 56, 60, 61
12:6 83
dee 156
ape 331
12:11 57
13:1 ff. 329, 389
280 13:4 202
13:6 202
15:18 180

1 Corinthians
135, 329
87
380
93
369
218
312
450
317,370
514 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

2: 9ff. 317 4: 3ff.

2:10 105, 307 4:6
2:10ff. 4:7
DSK 4:13
SV. S27
7:6 71
7:10 135 8:8
7:10ff. 107, 156, 177
7:12 135, Galatians
125 136 1:6ff. 262, 330
7:28 136 1:8 105
7:36 136 1:11 105
7:38 136 1:18 156
7:40 105, 135, 136 22 156
9:3 S02 3:8 103
9: 8ff. 177 3:15ff. 283
9:9f. 328 3:16 328
10:1 ff. 328 3:24 174, 175, 198
10:4 87 4:2
10:6 86, 328 4:4
10:8 142 4:21 ff.
10:11 86, 87, 134, 177 4:24
12 280
4:24f.
12:4ff. 60
4:25
12:7ff. 61
4:30
12:8 331
Sif.
12:13 105
a
12:28 156
12:28ff. 56, 330
13:9 60, 381 Ephesians
iSe12 261 1:3ff.
14:7 307 1:10
14:19 386 2:14
14:1 9ff. 308 2:20
14:20 307 3:6
14:29 78, 83, 93, 329 SS
14:32 93 4:3 ff.
14:33 307 4:11 156, 330
14:33ff. 330 4:12ff.
14:37 105 4:13f.
15:1 ff. 156 Sth
15:36. 103, 104, 190 5:10
15:3 ff. 329 eKsy
15:5ff. 229 5:17
15:11 156, 262, 330 6:11

2 Corinthians Philippians
Biot. 105 1:7 A
3:14 BP)
3:14 ff. 48, 50, 328
3:17 206
 SCRIPTURE INDEX @ 515

Colossians Hebrews
2:9 193 11 396
2:20 59 ISH 132
3217 62 1:1f. 104, 124, 134, 156, 177,
4:16 150-51, 154 207, 210
lei bag. 185
I Thessalonians 1:2 193
2:13 105, 207 L:Sff. 177
4:1f. 280 1:7 103
4:15ff. 107, 329 2:1 ff. 177, 185
5:21 329 3:1 ff. 177
3E7/ 103
2 Thessalonians ee ie ne
math: 329 4:12. 261

- au 4:13 261
2:15 280 7-2F 90

—— a0 9:8 103
10:15 103
1 Timothy 11:3 238
Ie | 138 11:6 213, 308
1:4 200
1:10 192 Piet
212i: 330 2 395
4:1 ff. 329 2:10 263

4:6 192 2:19 213

5:18 107, 177, 190 2:24 202, 395

5:23 130 3:1 ff. 330

6:1 280 3:13ff. 331, 332
6:3 280 5:7ff. 329
5:13 ff. 380
2 Timothy
25 192 I Peter
3:14f. 50 1:10f. 129
3:16 98, 102, 103, 104, 113, 1:10ff. 193, 218
O20 AZ Blase 1:10-12 328
185, 191, 207, 373 Ll 103
4:13 118, 130 LiZ 56, 86
4:16 332 1:16 177
2:13ff. 389
Titus 2:18—25 329
1:9 192 2 ily/a
1:12 390 225 332
faa 192 3:15 62, 79, 308, 332
23it: 330 Balote 332
2:14, 192 4:14 177

Philemon 2 Peter
8f. 135 1:12ff. 330
516 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

1:12-15 Viesol 1:1-3—3:19 239

1:16ff. W775 248 1:4 107
1:19 143, 185 1:10f. 104
1:21 102, 103, 125, 128, 131, jp itt 133
132513849157, 177, 2075 1:20 89, 245
347 2:1 104
2:1 Kf. 330 2:12 104
2221 111 3h) 107
3:1 ff. 330 3:8 190
3:2 329 3:8ff. 185
3:8 239 3:10 190
3215 104, 177. 190 4:5 89, 107
3:15f. 104, 151, 155 5:6 89, 107
3:16 104 7:9ff. 240
10:6 81, 239
1 John 10:6f. 392
1:1ff. 177 10:7 392
1:1-4 107 13:10 185
2:18 ff. 156 13:11 ff. 329
2:20 108 13:18 245
3:5 177 14:12 185
3:12 177 19: 1ff. 240
3:17 177 19:13 192
4:1ff. 108, 156 22:18 398
5.6 108 22:18f. 102, 104, 133, 156
2 John Noncanonical References
9 156, 330 1 Clement 45:1ff. 139

Ss rshni 4 Ezra 14:44ff. 150

12 107 4 Ezra 14:44-46 150

Sirach 44-49 396

Revelation Sirach 1:5 143
13 202 Sirach 1:24 143
20-22 280
1ea 34, 104 Wisdom of Solomon 1:1ff. 279
 Author Index

Abraham, W., 109, 118, 119, 174, 175 Bengel, 48, 56, 63, 71, 93, 118, 120, 122, 125,
Aland, K., 151, 157, 385, 386 128, 140, 169, 173, 181, 188, 191, 197,
Amberg, E. H., 169. 290 202, 205, 215, 244, 255, 312, 317, 318,
Amesius, 71 321, 328, 335, 338, 340, 341, 342, 351,
Aner, Karl, 89, 198, 199, 215, 254, 270, 275, 366, 379, 388, 403
276, 293 Betti, E., 18, 19, 222
Anselm, 337 Beyschlag, Karlmann, 408
Appian, 338 Bezzel, 318
Aquinas, Thomas, 125, 182 Biel, Gabriel, 115
Aristides, 498 Blank, J., 41, 43, 161, 371
Aristotle, 338 Bloch, Ernst, 112
Asmussen, Hans, 250 Blomberg, Craig L., 207, 241, 244
Athanasius, 150 Bodelschwingh, Friedrich v., 309
Augustine, 31, 69, 88, 113, 114, 115, 117, 125, Bodin, Jean, 31
Boeckh, August, 322, 331
127, 128, 130, 132, 139, 140, 182, 188,
Bolingbroke, 222, 253
241, 288, 295, 328, 337, 341
Bornkamm, Heinrich, 215
Bousset, W., 216
Baader, 36
Bring, R., 52, 67, 115, 267
Bahrdt, Karl (Carl) Friedrich, 199
Brunner, Emil, 216, 217
Baier, 364
Buddeus, Joh. Franz, 48, 49, 53, 59, 179, 226,
Barnikol, E., 52
227
Barr, James, 45, 67, 126, 171, 174, 178, 282, Biinderlin, Hans, 71
297, 361, 381 Bultmann, Rudolf, 16, 18, 25, 32, 36, 38, 41,
Barth, H. M., 369, 370 100, 123, 168, 197, 199, 211, 222, 223,
Barth, Karl, 18, 122, 123, 159, 169, 203, 211, 250, 271, 274, 275, 287, 288, 293, 296,
217, 300, 303, 310, 314, 322, 368 297, 303, 312, 324, 392
Bauer, Georg Lorenz, 277, 291
Baumgarten, B., 335 Cajetan, 151
Baumgarten, Siegmund Jacob, 16, 27, 213, Calixt, 111
222, 253, 255, 268, 291 Calov, A., 140, 172
Baur, F. C., 21, 35, 186, 220, 228, 250, 268, Calvin, 48, 50, 115, 152, 172, 173, 180, 184,
293, 294, 295, 296, 334 188, 267, 285, 318, 328, 345, 398
Beck, Johann Tobias, 49, 110, 125, 129, 305, Campenhausen, 114, 126, 144, 188
310, 311, 313, 315, 337, 349, 351-52, 353, Cappel, Louis, 253
354, 355, 357, 372, 373, 382, 406 Carson, D. A., 33, 365
Beisser, F., 49, 258, 267, 293 Charon, 252
Bekker, Balthasar, 30 Chemnitz, 152
518 e BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

Childs, Brevard S., 127, 142, 163, 257, 305, Flusser, David, 89
325, 333, 395 Francke, 48, 49, 62, 67, 169, 321, 328, 340,
Chladenius, Johann Martin, 213 403
Chmiel, 126, 188 Frank, Gustav, 265
Chubb, 253 Frank, Fr. H. R., 98, 142
Clement of Rome, 69, 114, 139 Frankemolle, Hubert, 324
Clévenot, 326 Frei, H. W., 271, 335, 342
Clubb, Thomas, 253 Frey, Hellmuth, 49, 314, 316-19, 359
Coccejus, 71 Frick, Heinrich, 99, 265
Collins, 253 Fuchs, Ernst, 32, 222, 304
Colovius, 339, 364 Funk, Robert, 303
Corrodi of Zurich, 231
Craig, John, 141 Gabler, Johann Philipp, 282, 289
Crellius, 252 Gadamer, H. G., 18, 23, 27, 32, 43, 223, 254,
258
Dannhauer, J. C., 17, 28, 178 Galileo, 30, 251
Daube, David, 240 Garve, Carl Berhard, 142
Delbriick, Ferdinand, 83 Gass, W., 289
Delitzsch, Franz, 232, 317 Gaussen, L., 100
Descartes, René, 29, 30, 31, 37, 165, 252, 253, Geiger, 220
Paster PDA PAY, PLS OUT Geisler, N., 101, 364
Dibelius, Martin, 52, 225, 257, 258, 270, 271, Gennrich, 97, 100, 110, 111
299, 322 Gerhard, Johann, 152, 173
Diem, Hermann, 309 Gerhardsson, 137
Dilthey, 16, 17, 18, 27, 32, 36, 46, 66, 336 Gese, H., 158, 159, 162, 292
Dinkler, Erich, 100, 222, 265, 286, 288, 290, Gess, W. F., 112
291, 292 Gigon, 197
Dioskur, 338 Girgensohn, Karl, 22, 24, 49, 54, 58, 72, 97,
Dobschiitz, E. von, 28, 53, 62, 250, 299, 323 123, 130, 171, 186, 189, 211, 216, 256,
Drewermann, E., 306, 369 259, 287, 301, 311-15, 316, 317, 318, 319,
Droysen, Johann Gustav, 22, 23, 31, 32, 44, 47, 325, 352, 359
DPA PID: Godan, 197
Du Plessis, 106 Goethe, 321
Goeze, 274, 299
Easton, B. S., 324 Goppelt, L., 198, 326, 327
Ebeling, G., 167, 179, 250, 251, 265, 267, 273, Gottsched, 31, 293, 295
285, 287, 293, 297, 300, 303, 305, 369 Grant, 69, 72, 272
Elert, W., 58, 99, 172 Grasser, E., 186, 249, 251, 303
Ellis, E. E., 137 Gregory the Great, 127
Entfelder, Christian, 71 Grotius, Hugo, 152
Erasmus, 30, 39, 254, 276 Gruner, Johann Friedrich, 227
Emesti, Johann August, 112, 189, 289, 335 Guicciardini, 393
Esking, E., 123, 294, 301, 322 Gunkel, H., 65, 123, 167, 220, 289, 294, 296
Eusebius, 152 Gunneweg, A. H., 320, 334
Ewald, 232 Giittgemanns, Erhardt, 257, 324

Fascher, E., 38, 257, 313, 324 Haffenreffer, 173

Feuerbach, 35, 268 Hahn, P. M., 197
Fichte, 275 Hamann, Johann Georg, 47, 311, 344-51, 367
Finlayson, 100 Harnack, Adolf, 16, 21, 26, 27, 36, 40, 43, 123,
Flacius, Matthias, 27, 33, 34, 71, 109, 117, 167, 274, 299
125, 130, 132, 140, 158, 160, 170, 182, Harnack, Theodosius, 98
188, 195, 226, 328, 337, 338, 339, 342, Harper, W. R., 99, 167
365, 388, 408 Hartlich, C., 370
 AUTHOR INDEX @ 519

Hase, Karl, 228, 268 Kant, 58, 253, 270, 276, 285, 293, 297, 344,
Hasel, 352 349, 370
Hegel, 19, 32, 35, 36, 44, 220, 268, 296 Kasemann, 192, 193, 197, 201, 203, 249, 274
Heidegger, 36, 293, 296 Keil, Karl August Gottlieb, 27, 66, 121, 189,
Heim, K., 197, 403 206, 228, 287, 335, 402
Heinrici, 16, 27 Kepler, 30
Hempelmann, 350 - Kierkegaard, 19, 221, 275
Hengel, M., 282, 283, 284 Kittel, 387
Hengstenberg, 250 Kohler, 98
Henry, C. F. H., 37, 101, 210, 368 Kohn, Peter, 67
Herder, Johann Gottfried, 32, 65, 287, 288, Konig, 339, 364
296, 297 Kraus, 188
Hermann, Gottfried, 247 Kropatscheck, F., 115, 127, 364
Herodotus, 223 Kriiger, G., 40
Hermann, W., 97, 285 Kiimmel, W. G., 252
Hesse, F., 161, 233, 239, 300 Kiing, H., 161, 201, 203
Hirsch, Emanuel, 249, 282, 286
Hitzig, 232 Lachmann, Karl, 247
Hobbes, Thomas, 121, 123 Latacz, Joachim, 247
Hofmann, Johann Christian Konrad von, 21, Lau, F., 140
27, 54, 60, 117, 142, 160, 189, 196, 311, Le Brun, Jacques, 141, 251, 252, 253
357-59 Lehmann, Karl, 281, 282, 296, 334
Holl, Karl, 48, 181 Leibniz, 31
Hollaz, 48, 51, 71, 115, 132, 339 Leiman, 149, 150
Holtz, 120 Lengsfeld, P., 161
Homer, 98, 247, 248, 274 Lessing, Gotthold Ephraim, 26, 98, 215, 231,
Honigswald, 35 255, 269, 270, 274, 275, 276, 282, 285,
Hornig, G., 97 286, 290, 291, 295, 299, 346
Hort, 386 Liebing, H., 268
Huet, Pierre-Daniel, 206 Lindner, 350
Hiilsemann, 364 Litt, Theodor, 43
Hume, David, 227, 253 Livius, 224
Hutter, 132 Locke, John, 231, 253
Lohmeyer, E., 35, 294, 322
Irenaeus, 69, 114, 139, 188, 195, 203, 328 Longenecker, 68, 89, 104, 144, 326
Lonergan, Bernard, 296
Jager, Paul, 309 Lonning, I., 160, 161, 266, 361
Jenson, R. W., 142 Loser, Werner, 201, 203, 205
Jeremias, Joachim, 89, 120 Liicke, Friedrich, 16, 17, 24, 27, 38, 49, 62,
Jerome, 69, 295 189, 305
Jerusalem, Friedrich Wilhelm, 98 Luther, Martin, 23, 33, 48, 50, 52, 67, 70, 82,
Joachim of Fiore, 195, 230 051229123125, 127 4140 s1475 151,
Joest, Wilfried, 99, 270, 271, 360, 361, 362, 152, 153, 154, 160, 168, 169, 172, 174,
366, 381 181, 188, 196, 203, 204, 215, 254, 265,
Josephus, 106, 127, 144, 149, 150, 169, 187, 266, 267, 276, 285, 295, 298, 317, 318,
223, 224, 338, 342 328, 337, 340, 341, 345, 366, 382, 383,
Jiilicher, Adolf, 250, 296 398, 404, 408
Jung, C. G., 25, 131, 165 Lutz, Johann Ludwig Samuel, 21, 49, 51, 72,
Justin Martyr, 69, 109, 114, 125, 126, 188, 83, 112, 170, 189, 311, 351-52
195, 237 Luz, U., 284

Kaftan, J., 97 Macchiavelli, 393

Kahler, Martin, 36, 49, 54, 121, 167, 211, 216, McGinley, L. J., 271
310, 311, 350 Machen, J. Gresham, 363, 364, 366
520 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

Magni, 252 Picht, G., 253, 258, 259, 272

Marcion, 69, 265 Pieper, F., 182, 184
Marheinecke, 112 Pierson, A. T., 361
Marshall, I. H., 130, 363, 365 Pinnock, Clark, 248
Martin, Ralph, 79, 90 Pius XII, 72, 127
Marxsen, W., 138 Planck, 313
Mathews, Shailer, 110, 168 Plato, 16, 17, 19, 98, 255, 287
Melanchthon, 50, 169, 226 Pliny, 287, 338
Mendelssohn, Moses, 346 Polybius, 224
Merk, Otto, 97, 320, 370 Porphyry, 139
Meyer, Gottlob Wilhelm, 215, 253, 254, 300 Preus, 110, 120
Michaelis, Johann David, 238, 252, 289 Procksch, Otto, 24, 49, 189, 212, 259, 315, 316
Michel, Otto, 319
Mickelsen, 101 Quenstedt, 34, 127, 182, 339
Mohammed, 265
Moldaenke, 27, 265, 338 Rambach, Johann Jakob, 49, 255, 340
Montaigne, 82, 252 Ramm, B., 101, 321, 365
Morgan, G. Campbell, 361 Ranke, 19
Morgan, Thomas, 235, 290, 292 Redlich, E. Basil, 179, 291, 324
Morin, 252 Reimarus, Hermann Samuel, 302
Mosheim, J. J., 48, 132, 172, 231 Reinhard, 372
Moule, H. C. G., 361 Reinhardt, Karl, 248
Miintzer, 404 Rendtorff, 305
Musaeus, 112 Reventlow, 141
Mussner, 16, 27, 67, 382 Richter, Wolfgang, 249, 320, 325
Ricoeur, P., 17, 18, 20, 25, 33, 42, 55, 57, 66,
Nabert, 225 111, 113, 129, 180, 199, 223, 225, 234,
Neill, Stephen, 281 238, 258, 261, 353
Nepos, 69 Ridderbos, H., 155
Nestle, 385, 386 Riesenfeld, H., 137, 323, 324
Nietzsche, 257 Riesner, R., 137
Nitzsch, 153 Rothacker, Erich, 43
Rothe, Richard, 98, 109, 112, 372
Oberbeck, Franz, 278 Ruard, 252
Oehler, G. F., 52 Rylaarsdam, 42
Oepke, Albrecht, 19, 24, 28, 44, 56, 68, 217,
315, 316, 383 Sasse, Hermann, 125
Olshausen, H., 66 Schadewaldt, Wolfgang, xiv, 165, 197, 224,
Origen, 48, 69, 109, 114, 125, 126, 139, 188 248, 274
Orr, James, 361 Scheel, O., 115, 188, 267
Otinger, 197 Scheler, Max, 43
Ott, Heinrich, 116 Schelling, 30, 258
Ottli, 98 Schille, G., 324
Otto, W. F., 223 Schlaffer, Hans, 94
Schlatter, 36, 120, 181, 191, 200, 204, 205,
Packer, J. I., 37, 101, 130, 361, 363, 365 230, 237, 238, 250, 261, 287, 305, 309,
Pannenberg, W., 210, 211 317, 318, 352-57, 373, 383
Pedersen, S., 150, 160 Schleiermacher, 16, 17, 19, 21, 32, 34, 35, 49,
Pelagius, 295 65, 66, 98, 109, 112, 118, 153, 159, 185,
Peyreres, Isaac de la, 30, 32 186, 227, 268, 358
Pfaff, Chr. Matth., 227, 255 Schmid, Christian Friedrich, 71
Philippi, Friedrich Adolf, 34, 37, 47, 49, 100, Schmid, H. H., 305
152, 189, 266, 321 Schmidt, W., 109, 123, 285
Philo, 68, 126, 127, 188, 342 Schmithals, 229
 AUTHOR INDEX @ 521

Schneider, Edwin E., 222 Toland, John, 253

Schniewind, 350 Torm, Frederik, 16, 17, 22, 46, 68, 79, 312
Schoffler, 254 Torrey, R. A., 361
Scholder, Klaus, 29, 165, 251, 267, 281, 284 Toscana, Christine von, 251
Schottroff, L., 371 Traub, F., 121, 123
Schrenk, Elias, 311, 313 Travis, S. H., 137
Schrenk, Gottlob, 120,-123, 142, 216 Treitschke, 47
Schroder, 132 Trillhaas, 171, 273, 275, 297
Schulz, Walter, 36, 293 Troeltsch, E., 35, 36, 131, 290, 391
Schulze, Gustav, 256 Trypho the Jew, 139
Schiirmann, Heinz, 137, 324 Turretin, Jean Alphonse, 45, 98, 254, 286, 287
Schwaiger, 273
Schweizer, E., 291 van den Berg, J., 256
Seeberg, Reinhold, 49, 170, 257, 283, 312 Vermes, G., 326
Sellin, 98 Vincent of Lérins, 184
Semler, Johann Salomo, 16, 89, 98, 121, 141, Virgil, 98
152, 252, 254, 265, 270, 274, 287, 289, Vischer, Wilhelm, 200
298, 299, 300, 316, 358 von der Miihll, Peter, 248
Siculus, Didorus, 338 von Rad, G., 223, 225
Simon, Richard, 127, 141, 252, 301
Smend, R., 368 Wach, J., 351, 358
Sneen, 224 Warfield, Benjamin Breckinridge, 101, 361,
Soiron, 324 363, 365
Sozzini, 252 Weber, Hans Emil, 49, 83, 109, 121, 168, 169,
Spalding, Johann Joachim, 255 194, 212, 226, 290, 305
Spener, 56, 173, 321 Weber, O., 177, 185, 186, 204, 205
Spinoza, Baruch, 30, 72, 167, 188, 226, 227, Weder, 392
253, 269, 285, 286, 297, 341 Wegscheider, 98
Spranger, Eduard, 19, 23, 31, 41, 43, 46, 67 Weinel, H., 40
Spurgeon, Charles Haddon, 143 Weiss, J., 300
Stanton, G. N., 56 Wellhausen, J., 36, 52, 178, 217, 232, 270,
Stephan, 153 275, 302, 376
Stibbs, Alan M., 108 Wendland, H.-D., 199
Stifel, M., 197 Wenham, Gordon J., 361
Stocker, 99 Wesley, John, 37
Strabo, 338 Westcott, 386
Strauss, D. F., 35, 171, 228, 250, 268, 269, Westermann, 68, 273
270, 275, 295, 299 Wiclif, 168
Strecker, G., 333, 334, 370 Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, Ulrich von, 247, 248
Stroth, F. A., 231 Wilckens, U., 66, 168, 383
Stuhlmacher, P., 120, 174, 282, 290, 301, 302, Windisch, 68
323, 345, 370 Wingren, Gustaf, 25
Suarex, Franz, 112 Wink, Walter, 306, 325
Sundberg, Albert C., 108, 126, 159 Wittgenstein, L., 39
Wolf, Friedrich August, 247
Taylor, V., 324 Wolff, Hans Walter, 31, 320, 323
Tertullian, 114, 125, 139, 172, 184, 188, 195 Woolston, Thomas, 227
Theodore of Mopsuestia, 335, 341 Wrede, William, 42, 99, 100, 137, 138, 189,
Tholuck, A., 98, 112 206, 289, 310, 334
Thucydides, 223, 224
Thumeysen, 219, 301 Yri, N., 325
Ticonius, 69, 88, 195, 230
Tillich, 217 Zahn, 151
Tindal, Matthew, 253, 290 Zockler, O., 98, 232
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 Subject Index

Academic theology, 212, 256-57, 309 318, 338, 339, 340, 342, 376, 378, 381,
Allegory, -ical, -ization, 66, 68-70, 71, 72, 88- 382, 384, 389, 390, 392, 393, 394, 398,
90, 91, 94, 248, 269, 327, 328, 400 399, 400, 403, 404, 407
Anabaptists, 71, 195, 230, 308 Church history, 48-50, 51, 86, 87, 120, 126,
Analogy, 35, 79, 85, 137, 173, 185, 274, 282, 127, 152, 156, 200, 203, 244, 271, 328,
290, 324, 372, 391, 393 334, 342, 367, 387, 388, 393, 398, 400, 408
Analogy of faith, 83, 182, 338, 398 Church theology, 95
Antisupernaturalism, 137, 293, 294 Church tradition, 82, 141, 142, 184, 252
Apologetics, 62, 79, 332-33, 343, 356 Cognitive understanding (of Scripture), 74, 77,
Autonomous reason (autonomy), 24, 58-59, 78-94, 145-46, 377, 379-80, 399, 403
82, 98, 186, 239, 258, 259, 263, 267, 278- Collective authorship, 137-38
79, 280, 285, 304, 311, 314, 317, 344 Communicative interpretation, 402-08
Concursive action, 130, 363
Believing-scientific interpretative method, 351 Confessions (of the church), 61, 83, 84, 122,
Biblical-historical interpretation, 375-409
178-79, 192, 240, 399
Biblicism, 53, 141-42, 172, 187, 189, 196, 216, Congeniality (principle of), 46-47, 53, 337
228, 263, 295, 311
Content criticism, 111-12, 186, 249, 262-65,
266, 301-3, 304, 323, 347, 370, 371, 372,
Canon, 113, 121, 149-63, 241-44, 325, 334,
373, 397, 401
391, 395
Convergence method, 208
Canonicity, 153-55, 157
Covenant theology, 195, 230, 334, 339
Canon within the canon, 158, 159-62, 314,
355, 366
Deductive-rational reasoning, 364-65
Cartesianism, 23-24, 29-30, 33, 57, 252-53
Deism, 26, 35, 227, 231, 253, 277, 290
Catholic (Roman), 16, 41, 43, 61, 68, 72-73,
Delimitation (of the canon), 155-58
82, 99, 101, 109, 111-12, 116, 140, 141,
143, 151, 159, 166-67, 171, 173, 183, 184, Demythologization, 293
185, 201, 203, 217, 228, 230, 251-53, 291,
Depth psychology, 306, 369
305, 362 Determining the text, 384-86, 387, 401, 403
Causality, 131, 230 Dialectical theology, 216, 295
Christian experience, 171, 172, 337 Dictation theory, 99, 117, 132-33
Christology, -ical, 117, 192, 200, 203, 205, Discipleship, 57-58, 59, 75, 94, 214, 355
266, 390 Dogmatics, 38, 85, 114, 118, 126, 169, 171,
Chronology (of biblical books), 240-44 233, 297, 339, 347, 356-57, 386, 398, 399
Church, 36, 38, 54, 61-62, 70, 78, 82, 83, 84, Dogmatic understanding (of Scripture), 70, 79,
86, 95, 100, 108, 126, 139, 150, 151, 153, 82-85, 94, 378
156, 157, 159, 163, 166-67, 169, 170-71, Dynamic understanding (of Scripture), 73, 74-
179, 182, 185-86, 191, 192, 201, 205, 245, 76, 77, 78, 94, 146, 377, 378, 379, 399,
252, 256-57, 276, 294, 295, 305, 309, 311, 403, 407
524 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

Early church (interpretation of Scripture), 48, Historical criticism, 43, 65, 67, 72, 97, 99-100,
68-69, 88, 89, 106, 109, 114, 127, 135, 118, 160-61, 168, 169, 179, 183-84, 188,
139-40, 145, 151, 153, 154-55, 162, 188, 189, 196, 197, 209, 211, 214, 215-16, 228,
195, 205, 327-28, 335 247-306, 309, 311-15, 316, 317, 318, 319,
Ecstatic inspiration, 126-27 320-26, 333, 334, 335, 343, 351, 352, 361,
Enlightenment, 41, 48, 49, 57, 72, 73, 89, 97, 364, 368-70, 373, 375, 377, 384, 385, 387-
110, 111, 113, 116, 127, 139, 141, 152-53, 88, 389, 391, 392, 393, 395, 396, 397, 401,
159, 160, 166, 167, 179, 187, 188, 192, 402, 407
198, 202, 215, 222, 226, 231, 232, 249, Historical exegesis, 68, 72, 388-89, 391, 394,
253) 254, 2512 258, 202, 207, 208s 271, 401, 402
DIZ DIS: Qld el LION eI ole coo. Historicality (of Scripture), 209-46, 344
285, 296, 298, 313, 315, 317, 336, 339, Historical-scientific exegesis, 66, 207
342, 343, 344, 345, 348, 349, 370, 372, Historical theology, 23, 120, 364, 367
373, 381, 392, 402 Historical understanding (of Scripture), 80-82,
Entire inspiration, 119-24, 129, 130, 134, 144 85, 87, 90, 94
Errancy (of Bible), 117, 128, 130, 139-47, 291- History of religions, 40, 163, 220, 309-10, 338
92, 365 Human goodness (doctrine of), 31, 254-55,
Eschatology, -ical, 69, 70, 90, 91, 107, 185, 276, 295
194-95, 198, 201, 205, 240, 273, 275-76, Humanism, 23, 30, 239, 277, 336
Hypotheses, 257, 324, 390, 408
294, 302, 329, 356-57, 362
Eschaton, 197-98, 245
Idea inspiration, 111-13, 116, 119, 120
Ethical understanding (of Scripture), 70, 74,
Immanence, 33, 44
76-78, 94, 146, 377, 378, 379, 399, 403,
Immanent causality, 35, 36, 311
407
Immanentism, 290-91
Evangelical theology, 189, 196, 249
Inerrancy (of Scripture), 37, 98, 101, 109, 115,
Evangelism, 331-32, 362, 403, 405-6
118, 140-44, 248, 362, 364-66, 367, 368
Existential, -ism, 18-19, 32-33, 171, 197, 199,
Infallibility (of Scripture), 37, 99, 109, 114,
22l, 222,223) 22422 hore le
130, 139, 142, 143, 144, 291, 300, 355, 364
Experiential theology, 36-37, 358-59, 360,
Inspiration
372-73
doctrine of, 97-147, 267, 289-92
levels of, 118
Fallibility (of Bible), 139-47
mechanical, 127, 363
Federal theology, 71 partial, 112-13, 121
Form criticism, 137, 271, 323-25, 338, 387-88
personal, 98, 101, 109-11, 112-13, 116,
Formula of Concord, 35, 76, 178-79 119, 120, 255, 289, 290, 371
Fundamentalism, scholarly, 37, 100-101, 116, plenary, 120, 362, 363
132, 143, 360-68 verbal, 98-99, 100-101, 110, 113-19, 121,
Fundamentalist hermeneutic, 37, 109 124, 126-27, 142, 143, 184, 188, 289,
Futuristic form (of prophetic meaning), 91-92, 291, 318, 347, 363
93 I-Thou relationship, 47, 55-56

German idealism, 17, 19, 123, 221, 234, 322 Jesus’ interpretation of Scripture, 68-69, 91-
Gnostic, -ism, 67, 69, 78, 88, 183, 187, 188 92, 114, 134, 174-76, 190, 263-65, 326-27
Grammatical-historical exegesis, 54, 255, 302, Jewish interpretation of Scripture, 68-69, 73,
335 104, 119, 127, 144, 187-88, 326-27, 335
Grammatical interpretation, 282 Justification (doctrine of), 121, 201, 202, 203,
Grammatical-lexical understanding, 48, 51 206, 255

Harmonization (of Scripture), 187, 189, 206-8, Kerygma, 224, 226, 229
281 Koran, 21-22, '58, 59, 104, 155, 210, 241
Heresy, 69, 78, 132, 192-93
Hermeneutica sacra, 21, 27, 31, 273, 336 Laity (and interpretation of Bible), 66-67, 70,
Hermeneutica profana, 27 76, 78-79
 SUBJECT INDEX e@ 525

Liberal theology, 40, 42, 99, 250, 263, 294, Pietism, 21, 34, 37, 45, 48-49, 71, 109, 116,
310 120-21, 122, 125, 169, 180-81, 188, 189,
Liberation theology, 295 195, 230, 254, 321, 328, 337, 339-40, 342,
Literal-historical exegesis, 69, 335 349, 356, 360, 367
Literalist interpretation, 68, 327, 328, 336 Platonism, 41, 123, 216-17
Literary criticism, 338, 390 Pneumatic-edifying interpretation, 311-12,
314, 319
Mechanistic-causal explanation, 23-24, 311 Pneumatic exegesis, 49, 53, 72, 99, 189, 196,
Messenger, 128-29 287, 308-19, 321, 352, 359-60
Midrashic interpretation, 68, 89, 327 Pneumatic interpretation, 217, 351
Miracles, 169, 170, 218, 232, 238, 269, 291, Pneumatics (people), 307-8, 341
294, 302, 317, 348, 355, 362, 391, 392-93 Positive criticism (of Bible), 98-99, 248, 288,
of nature, 228, 391 292, 297, 368
problem of, 30-31 “Positive” theology, 141-42, 187, 232, 290,
and revelation, 226-30 300
Missiological (dimension of Scripture inter- Praxis, 176, 310, 331, 337, 340, 343, 353, 372,
pretation), 62, 331-32 378, 380, 381-82, 383, 403
Missionary impulse (and historical criticism), Prayer, 49, 256, 294, 312, 313, 340, 362, 378,
273-74 380, 382, 384, 389, 399
Moderate criticism, 168, 169, 294, 350, 355, Precritical interpretation (of Scripture), 333-
368-73 44, 351, 355, 358, 362, 373, 403
Moralistic judgment (and historical criticism), Predictive prophecy, 358
250-51 Presentistic form (of prophetic meaning), 91-
Moral perfection of man, 231, 233 92
Multiple meaning (sense) of Scripture, 66, 68- Presuppositionless exegesis, 25, 42-43, 45-46,
73, 188, 300, 316, 327, 328, 336, 342, 400 47, 296, 334, 358
Presuppositions (and interpretation), 16, 25,
Natural science, 30, 38, 197, 222, 251, 273-74, 32, 41, 43, 45-46, 47, 49, 50, 51, 56, 59, 60,
337 143, 195, 213, 220, 258, 272, 278, 283,
Natural theology, 179, 355 296, 299, 313, 357-58, 382, 401
“Negative” criticism (of Bible), 98 Progressive revelation, 80, 81, 90, 193-95,
Neology, -ism, ists, 31, 32, 43, 198, 215, 265, 240, 366, 397
270, 293, 295 Prophecy, 22, 68, 69, 84, 93, 169, 170, 218,
Norma normans, 161, 178-80, 184, 351, 353, 228, 230-40, 294, 329, 339, 357, 392
373, 400 Prophetic understanding (of Scripture), 90-94,
Numbers (in Bible), 244-45 400
Proximity (principle of), 387
Obedience, 24, 48, 57-58, 59, 77, 90, 97, 144,
146, 180-81, 262, 288, 304 Rationalism, 37, 43, 59, 98, 141, 181, 182,
Objectivity (in interpretation), 18-19, 334 215, 227-28, 249, 251, 252, 253, 254, 265,
Opening up the text, 248, 337, 386-93, 394, 282, 339, 340, 341
403-4 Reason, 23, 25-26, 29-31, 35, 48, 50, 53, 57,
Original sin, 31, 254-55, 295 58, 59, 66, 73, 110, 165, 167, 172, 179,
198, 215, 226-27, 231, 252, 253, 254, 258-
Patristics, 203, 342, 398 59, 269, 272, 277, 278, 279, 280, 282, 285,
Pentateuchal criticism, 305 293, 295, 299, 304, 311, 313, 314, 315,
Pesher method (of interpretation), 68-69, 91, 317, 330, 334, 340, 348, 351, 370, 372,
328 383, 385, 386, 400
Philological exegesis, 386-88, 394, 401 Reformation, 33, 50, 71, 114, 151-52, 155,
Philological-grammatical understanding, 87, 167, 168, 170, 176, 181, 184, 188, 202,
90, 338 205, 263, 265-67, 273, 276, 290, 295, 301,
Philological-historical understanding, 43, 89 334, 336, 349, 362, 364, 366-67, 369, 373,
Philological-theological method of interpreta- 386, 394
tion, 343 Renaissance, 71, 254, 280
526 @ BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

Romanticism, 220, 296, 321 “Servant form” of revelation, 212, 226, 262,
347
Salvation-historical understanding (of Single-meaning approach to Scripture, 73
Scripture), 86, 90-91, 120, 122, 141-42, Skepticism, 57, 216, 217, 222, 251-52, 253,
162, 189, 193, 195-202, 206, 208, 262, 278, 281-84
264, 317, 339, 341, 342, 358, 366, 377 Social-historical interpretation (of Scripture),
Salvation history, 81, 155, 185, 192, 193, 195- 371
202, 206, 215, 230, 244, 287, 328, 334, 393 Socinians, 43, 140, 141, 182, 252, 364
Scholasticism, 34, 48, 58, 71, 99, 109, 110, Sola scriptura, 115, 167, 178, 184, 188, 252,
111, 114-15, 118, 122, 125, 127, 132, 140, 291, 301, 342. See also Scripture principle
152, 170, 172-73, 181, 182, 184, 188, 254, Soteriology, -ical, 112, 121
298, 308, 318, 328, 339, 341, 342, 345, Spiritualism, -ists, 71, 308
347, 348-50, 351, 362, 364, 366, 367 Subjectivism (in interpretation), 18, 43, 78, 82,
Scientific exegesis, 16, 62, 67, 75, 79, 359, 122, 158, 248, 258-59, 360
378, 402 Supernatural, 54, 128, 131, 231, 233, 238, 255,
Scopus (major point), 401, 402, 403, 404, 405 259, 269, 273, 292-94, 311, 391, 392, 393
Scripture Suprahistorical, 258, 270, 293, 294, 299, 312,
authority of, 100, 165-86, 190, 226, 230, 316
284-88, 309, 325, 342, 349, 353, 355, Symbolic numbers (in Bible), 245
360, 362 Synthetic interpretation, 394-402, 403, 404
center of, 202-6, 366
complexity of, 201-2 Teleological, 86, 197-98
contradictions in, 114, 119, 139, 140, 188- Testing (of interpretation), 93, 329-30, 343,
89, 191, 201-2, 243, 244, 292, 327, 372 378, 399
doctrine of, 98, 339 Textual criticism, 56, 262, 341, 342, 385, 386
explained by Scripture, 182 Theologia crucis, 206
harmonization of, 187, 189, 206-8 Theologia gloriae, 207
organism, 188, 189, 366 Theologia regenitorum, 48-51, 54, 313, 316,
perspecuity of, 70, 93, 138, 181-84, 252, 317, 323, 340, 348, 349, 354, 358, 379
355 Tradition history, 158-59, 162, 198, 388-89,
spiritual sense of, 85-86, 336 404
sufficiency of, 184-86, 252 Tradition principle, 184, 185
trustworthiness of, 60, 144, 147, 173, 283, Transcendence, 290-91
365-66 Two-authority thinking, 167-68, 179-80, 372-
unambiguousness of, 181 73
unity of, 114, 130-31, 158-59, 177, 187- Typological interpretation, 69, 71-72, 85-88,
208, 292, 314, 317, 334, 339, 342, 347, 90, 91, 94, 198, 327, 328, 349, 378, 400
349, 351, 352, 355, 366, 372, 373, 395-
96 Universal doubt (principle of), 29, 281
Scripture principle, 141, 252, 300-301. See University theology, 95, 100, 381
also Sola scriptura
Sensus literalis, 68, 69-71, 86, 336, 342, 349, Word inspiration, 116
387 Worship, 78, 93, 330, 353
Sensus spiritualis, 72
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URRENT BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION is in a muddled state. Can

the historicity of Scripture be placed in question but its authority
and significance still be upheld? Can we be truly Christian while
calling the reliability of biblical revelation into doubt? Gerhard
Maier provides a Christian understanding of the science of biblical
hermeneutics: the inspiration and authority of Scripture, the role of
the canon, the historical nature of Scripture, current discussion of rev-
abretoyemrereMeutelalsearmcices
Citing the importance of the subject Maier says, “Against long-
standing and still virulent tendencies of modernity we must speak
confidently of the history of God’s dealings with mankind.” He adds,
Walcovesrentteltertenrcmslouestorlatis(ome me
nouelcstatlelexemosleoltinicoemccnnts
essential at the present time. Yet this encounter with God will flour-
ish only where the Bible is permitted to be no less than what God
intends: namely, the Word of God.”
An outstanding work of biblical. scholarship that will prove
invaluable for all who desire a better grasp of the Bible in the mod-
ern world and especially for those in classes on biblical interpretation.

Gerhard Maier is currently rector and professor at Tiibingen in

Germany. He has earned undergraduate degrees in both law and the-
ology and has a doctorate in theology. He has written numerous com-
mentaries and other books and assorted articles. He and his wife have
four grown sons.
Robert Yarbrough, who translated this book into English, is
Associate Professor of New Testament at Covenant BW erere)Coyeater
Seminary.

ISBN 0-89107-767-7

., CROSSWAY :
en 31010).6 |
9 °780891°077671