I want to make some basic hermeneutic points that respect the Bible and still remain reasonable as working principles of interpretation. So, I have elected to provide a paraphrase from “God’s Inerrant Word” (pp. 278-279) by John Warwick Montgomery.
1. Each Bible passage must be seen as true in its natural sense (sensus literalis) unless the context of the passage itself suggests otherwise or if an article of faith found elsewhere in Scripture imposes the necessity for a wider interpretation.
2. How did Jesus and His Apostles view Scripture? Their reverence and respect for Scripture must rule the interpreter’s approach to the Bible. Any interpretation that sees the Bible as originally written to be in error must be rejected.
3. Bible passages should be harmonized within reasonable limits until such harmonization is impossible. Then, the exegete must leave the matter open rather than consider the passage to be in error and without inspiration from God.
4. Culture and language study must be used to help in the understanding of a text and never used to impose on the text any outside bias that would call into question the truth of Scripture. Data from outside Scripture can and should be used to scrutinize the text, but only Scripture itself in the final analysis can correctly answer questions about itself.
5. Some literary forms other than poetry and biography may be inconsistent with the Bible as the Word of God. The Bible interpreter must avoid literary forms (such as midrash used by some ancient Jewish or Islamic scholars) which would question the truthfulness or the morality of the God of the Bible.1
6. The Bible interpreter should use all scholarly research tools that do not require rationalistic commitments. Rationalistic methods can be identified by their biases (such as Rudolf Bultmann’s demythologizing and the documentary hypothesis which divides the Pentateuch into layers written by unknown later editors) or like the “circularity principle” of the so-called “New Hermeneutic” which tries to impose past and present situations outside the text of scripture unto the text itself becoming a basis for the formulation of biblical teaching. These and other rationalistic techniques must be avoided at all costs in biblical interpretation.2
[added by Montgomery from Augustine]
7.“In an authority so high, admit but one officious lie, and there will not remain a single passage of those apparently difficult to practice or to believe, which on the same most pernicious rule may not be explained as a lie uttered by the author willfully and to serve some higher end.”3
A General Reply to Atheist Illogic
An atheist (a Mr. Meritt) takes to task various "methods" Christian apologists like myself employ. He serves up some ground rules on what is not acceptable as a reply to his charge that the Bible is littered with contradictions and discrepancies. All of his ground rules, or "methods" with the possible exception of number six, are absurd. For example, Mr. Merritt disallows any claim that the Bible's use of metaphors might be employed to answer some charges of contradictions. He claims that apologists who make use of the metaphor argument are being arbitrary. Yet I am sure Mr. Meritt would be able to recognize metaphor and simile in non-biblical literature. If seeing obvious metaphor clears up a misunderstanding then how is that a contradiction? It is a contradiction because Mr. Meritt presupposes one. And around and around we go!
Mr. Meritt makes light of the argument that discrepancies between numbers (e.g., Ahaziah's age when he began to reign as discussed in 2 Kings 8:26 and 2 Chronicles 22:2) are not damaging to arguments in support of biblical inerrancy. Yet, most evangelicals understand that claims for biblical inerrancy are for the original autographs only. However, even this is de facto irrelevant because the art and science of textual criticism has pretty much determined that only a small percentage of our present text is inaccurate. These discrepancies in number can be shown, for the most part, to be reconciled in textual variants with their own strong witness and this fact is more often than not reflected in modern translations.
Also, note that the author's anti-supernatural presuppositionalism is apparent in such statements as the following: "'That is a miracle'. Naturally. That is why it is stated as fact." In other words, miracles cannot be facts because "everyone" knows that miracles just don't happen.”
Mr. Merrit objects to the accusation, made by defenders of the Bible, that opponents of biblical inerrancy, take passages out of context to arrive at their conclusions. However, this is a legitimate concern because taking things out of their context is also known as the fallacy of Equivocation and/or the fallacy of Weak Analogy.4 If Mr. Merrit commits a logical fallacy by comparing apples to oranges, then I have an obligation to call him on it.
Finally, Bible defenders are attacked as "reality impaired". This ad hominem attack may serve to draw chuckles in the irreligious choir Mr. Merrit preaches to, but it does little to help his argument. The apostle Paul reminds us that the only reality is found in Jesus (Colossians 2:17).
God good to all, or just a few?
PSA 145:9 The LORD is good to all: and his tender mercies are over all his works.
JER 13:14 And I will dash them one against another, even the fathers and the sons together, saith the LORD: I will not pity, nor spare, nor have mercy, but destroy them.
Here is an attempt to compare apples with oranges (cf. “A General Reply to Atheist Illogic”). David is remarking about God’s compassion toward all. The fact that He allows Mr. Merrit to breathe the air and live as long as he has without apparent ill-effect is remarkable and extremely compassionate seeing that God certainly isn’t getting anything out of it! God is waiting for repentance and I hope it happens, but I won’t hold MY breath. As for the Jeremiah passage, this is a reference to the end of God’s patience, which, if God is to be just, must happen. Where is the contradiction? Not liking the theology is not the same as a contradiction.