Biblical hermeneutics
The Biblical Hermeneutics is the science of understanding of biblical texts, an applied form of hermeneutics.
Questions for the right understanding of the Bible, and thus the first hermeneutical considerations can already be found in the Bible itself, " Do you understand what you are reading? " - This question of Philip to the Ethiopian civil servants eunuchs from the royal court provoked the answer is " How can I ( because ) some man should guide me. " ( Acts 8: 30 ff.)
Hermeneutics and exegesis
Hermeneutics and exegesis are to be distinguished from each other. Biblical exegesis refers to the concrete interpretation of a particular biblical text, hermeneutics, however, illuminates the conditions and aims of interpretation. The two behave similarly to language and grammar.
When Philip the chamberlain explains the text in the above example, it operates exegesis; it has its explanation in a specific hermeneutics as the basis: A Old Testament prophetic word for him by Christ to understand her. A rabbinic Jew saw it differently and would therefore interpret the text differently.
Hermeneutical assumptions
In the Bible, interpretation of individual Bible reader several factors interact with: In part it involves deliberately applied rules, eg " Scripture is to be explained by writing ," ie, when considering a single passage in the Bible is to be taken into account with what the Bible says otherwise. Practically, this means that the product obtained from the previous reading of the Bible dogmatic image participates in the interpretation of Scripture under consideration.
Tradition -conscious Christians want to note the previous interpretation of Christianity with. However, even if, for example, Fathers of the Church has no authority is granted, Bible commentaries are often used - and it is also knocks down the existing understanding of Christianity.
Other factors often act unconsciously, about the life experience and the psychological predisposition (eg, a tendency to anxiety) of the Bible reader. The motives for Bible reading can influence the interpretation, also the expectations and openness for letting the text work on you. The participation of the mind as an aid in the "Process" eventually affects all these factors.
Who interprets the Bible texts, without dealing with hermeneutics questions quickly reaches its limits. Any interpretation of the Bible, whether at the university or in the Bible study group, is influenced by conscious or unconscious theological assumptions. Such basic hermeneutical key decisions such as to different answers to the question of how the resurrection accounts are to be understood: as hallucinations, as subsequently developed myths or historical event?
Even those who, unencumbered by all theology, simply believes that the entire text has been dictated by the Holy Spirit, and that the text simply must literally be understood as it stands, so that makes hermeneutical rules on whether he is aware of it or not. To achieve justifiable results in the interpretation of the Bible, however, it is necessary not only to have rules for the design, but to also be made aware of these rules.
These basic estimates relate to the following areas:
- Understanding of the Bible and Inspiration: How is the history of biblical texts assessed?
- The cultural divide: The Bible text was written in another language, comes from a different culture and time from other circumstances. Example, if Lydia is baptized " along with her house" (Acts 16:15), so could the term "house" mislead today's readers. Or, act like, for example, the migration of Abraham to a well-off Europeans?
- What especially the New Testament concerns: history of early Christianity and its environment: development of the Christian church and the theological directions, development of intellectual currents outside. Where then is a specific New Testament text to be arranged?
The responses of individual denominations and individual theologians are very different. Anyway, try the Bible teacher, philosophically and theologically to formulate its principles, even if decisions for the attitude itself often fall intuitive.
Biblical hermeneutics is divided for practical reasons in the hermeneutics of the Old and New Testament. The unity of Scripture should not lose sight of what sought the dogmatic doctrine of Scripture within the Systematic Theology.
Positions Biblical Hermeneutics
- Liberation Theological understanding of Scripture
- Dialectical theological understanding of Scripture
- Existentialist understanding of Scripture
- Evangelical understanding of Scripture
- Feminist understanding of Scripture
- Fundamentalist understanding of Scripture
- Social History understanding of Scripture
- Lectio divina (fourfold sense of Scripture )
- ( Depths ) psychological understanding of Scripture