WAYS OF INTERPRETING SCRIPTURE
Hermeneutics is the technique for interpreting things. Source, Form and Redaction Criticism are all hermeneutic approaches - they are ways of interpreting how texts come to be composed and what they originally meant. Wilhelm Wrede's theory of the Messianic Secret in Mark's Gospel is a hermeneutic theory: it claims to interpret the true meaning of Mark.
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In another example, Catholic hermeneutics will defend the perpetual virginity of Mary (because that's part of Catholic tradition), but might agree with Raymond E. Brown that Matthew's birth narrative is just "an attractive drama that catches the imagination". Liberal hermeneutics might treat the whole birth narrative as a set of pericopae that support Matthew's beliefs about the 'Christ of faith' but have no basis in the 'Jesus of history'. Traditional hermeneutics will insist that the Virgin Birth occurred as Matthew describes it, not because of Catholic tradition (which Protestants reject) but because that's the literal sense of the Bible; Matthew presumably learned the story from Jesus' own family.
Because it can be pretty free with the Bible, Catholic hermeneutics can sometimes sound like liberal hermeneutics. From the Bible-based viewpoint of traditional/Protestant hermeneutics, both groups can sound like atheists
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The opposite of exegesis is 'eisegesis' (meaning 'drawing in'). Eisegesis means imposing your own personal views on a Bible text rather than drawing out the text's actual meaning. It's usually a negative term of disapproval. From the viewpoint of traditional hermeneutics, liberal critics are involved in eisegesis when they reinterpret Bible passages using techniques like Form Criticism.
For example, Wilhelm Wrede carries out exegesis on the Parable of the Sower and Mark 4: 11. He concludes that Jesus is deliberately keeping his Messiah-ship a secret and builds his hermeneutical theory of the Messianic Secret on this. Morna Hooker criticises Wrede's conclusions, saying that there are more straightforward reasons for Jesus to say these things and that Wrede is really engaged in eisegesis: he is 'reading too much' into the passage.
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However, sometimes the liberal theologians accuse the traditional Christians of eisegesis when they interpret a passage from the Bible by ignoring its historical context - its Sitz im Leben.
For example, many passages in the Old Testament that are interpreted as predictions about Jesus Christ have a more plausible preterist interpretation based on the prophet's own lifetime, but traditionalists often ignore this. The meme on the left refers to Jeremiah 29: 11, where God tells the reader "I have plans for you" - but this originally was meant to comfort the Jews being taken into exile in Babylon in 597 BCE. |