Henry Virkler and Abdur-Rahman Abou Almajd discuss Hermeneutics: Principles and Processes of Biblical Interpretation

Henry Virkler and Abdur-Rahman Abou Almajd discuss Hermeneutics: Principles and Processes of Biblical Interpretation.

We have a fresh opportunity to reflect about Hermeneutics: Principles and Processes of Biblical Interpretation. At this point Professor Henry A. Virkler isn’t  going to talk about his views on his work but talks on Hermeneutics: Principles and Processes too.

Henry A. Virkler

He is professor of psychology at Palm Beach Atlantic University. He has written five books, including A Christian's Guide to Critical Thinking. Karelynne Gerber Ayayo (Th.D., Boston University) is assistant professor of New Testament at Palm Beach Atlantic University.

Q: First of all I wonder what made you write the book “Hermeneutics: Principles and Processes of Biblical Interpretation”?

HV:  Since some of the listeners to this interview may not be familiar with the word “hermeneutics,” let me give a brief definition:  Hermeneutics is the science and art of biblical interpretation.  It’s goal is to help us be able to properly interpret God’s  Word.

As you probably know, most books on hermeneutics are written by theologians.  I completed a master’s degree at a seminary, but my primary training is in Christian counseling.

My impetus for studying, teaching, and eventually writing about hermeneutics actually came from a student back in 1975.  He asked the question:  “We are getting graduate-level training in psychology, but most of us only have Sunday School level training in theology.  What is to prevent us from reading our psychology into the Bible rather than reading the Bible for what it’s actually saying?”

The faculty at the school where I was teaching thought that was an excellent question, and because we wanted to train our students to accurately interpret the Bible when they did counseling, we decided to add a course in hermeneutics to the curriculum.  Since I was the only faculty member at that school who had ever taken a course in hermeneutics, I was elected to teach it.

Eventually I put my lecture notes into written form and they were published as a book by the above title, and since that time that book has been published in eight languages and is used around the world to teach Bible students how to be good interpreters of God’s Word.

Q: I enjoyed reading as I find the text is clear, easy to understand and logical but I wanted to know why you didn’t detail other hermeneutical movements such as allegorism and deconstructionisn.

 

HV: In order to answer that question I need to talk about the primary theory behind classical hermeneutics. 

The primary principle underlying hermeneutics is this: The meaning of a text is the author’s intended meaning.

There are at least six important reasons for defining hermeneutics this way: 

(1) This is the way we recognize a valid interpretation of anyone’s message (God’s or anyone else’s). Is what we are saying a message means what the author intended his or her message to mean?

(2) When someone interprets something we spoke or wrote and says it means something different from what we intended it to mean, we generally object and say they are misunderstanding what we said.

(3) If the idea that “The meaning of a text is what it means to me” was accepted, then it means that every communication would lose its meaning, for any spoken or written statement could potentially have as many meanings as it had interpreters.

(4) It would mean that no contract would be legally binding, because whoever wanted to violate the terms of the contract could say that the contract means something different to them than it does to the other parties to the contract.

(5) It would mean that teachers could not grade students on their acquisition of the information in a course, because each student could say that the textbook and the class lectures meant something different to them than they did to the instructor.

(6) It also would mean that there would be no way of differentiating orthodox from heretical interpretations of Scripture.  If every Scripture can be interpreted as “what it means to the individual reader,” then every reader’s personal interpretation is equally valid.  No doctrine could be labeled as orthodox, and none could be labeled as heresy.  Each one would have to be considered equally valid.

The points above do not mean that speakers or writers always state their intended meaning clearly.  Sometimes we communicate unclearly.  But even in those cases, if someone misinterprets our intended meaning, we respond by saying: I don’t think I made my point clearly.  What I meant was . . . . .” 

When we struggle to understand what a speaker or writer said, which sometimes happens because they are using words or grammar or concepts we are not familiar with, we’re struggling to understand his or her intended meaning.

Thus the primary canon of hermeneutics is this: In order for communication, dialogue, learning, or legal contracts to have meaning, we must accept the principle that the meaning of a text is the author’s intended meaning.

And this is why “The meaning of a biblical text is what it means to me” is not a valid interpretive strategy.

With this understanding as a foundation, let me come back to your question, which actually had two parts.  First, why don’t I spend a large amount of time discussing allegorism as a model of biblical interpretation?

Allegorism is a model of interpretation which was developed by the ancient Greeks in the centuries around the time when Christ lived on earth.  The Greeks had many myths about their various gods.  Sometimes these myths portrayed the gods as doing very cruel or self-centered things.  In order to avoid the literal meaning of some of these stories, some Greek writers said these stories should be treated as allegories rather than stories that were literally true.  They proposed that stories could be allegorized (that is, new meanings could be given to the stories that would not be found if one just interpreted them literally).  They then proceeded to develop a series of allegorical interpretations that made the stories acceptable to their contemporary thinking.

Since the early church leaders were influenced by the culture around them, they began using allegorical interpretation if a particular biblical story or passage said something they disagreed with.  Many times different people would give different allegorical interpretations to the same passage, all based on their creativity rather than what the passage actually said.

Allegorism was used extensively by biblical interpreters up until the 1500s.  At that time Martin Luther and others began rejecting it for the reason suggested at the beginning of this answer–it substituted the present writer’s meaning instead of understanding the original author’s intended meaning.  If we do believe that the proper interpretation of God’s Word means understanding what He intended it to mean, then that means it is wrong to try to make it mean something we would like it to mean rather than what He intended it to mean.  Thus we do not allegorize Scripture unless it is one of those rare instances where the biblical author tells us that he is giving us an allegory (for example, Galatians 4: 21-31)

It is for a similar reason that evangelical theologians reject deconstructionisn as an interpretive method.  For those reading this interview who may not be familiar with that term, a very simple description of deconstructionism is that this approach believes that every reader of a text may deconstruct (take apart) the words of a text, then reconstruct it to mean what it means to them.  As with allegorism, the reason classical hermeneutics rejects deconstructionism as an interpretive method is that it abandons the attempt to discover the author’s intended meaning, and instead substitutes whatever it means for each particular reader.

It is for the same reason that classical hermeneutics and evangelical theologians reject many of the interpretive theories of Schleiermacher and other liberal theologians and groups.  We believe that if our modern culture disagrees with something God says in His Word, we are not to try to give a new interpretation to what God says, but instead conform our thinking to what God says, even when what God says conflicts with what our culture says is the politically-correct way of thinking.

Q: You said "Since the early church leaders were influenced by the culture around them, they began using allegorical interpretation if a particular biblical story or passage said something they disagreed with.  Many times different people would give different allegorical interpretations to the same passage, all based on their creativity rather than what the passage actually said." Could you give me some examples on that, please?

HV: For allegorical interpretation, please see the description and example of Philo allegorizing the story of Abraham on page 47 and the top of page 48.

Q: You wrote in the Preface, “The majority of hermeneutics texts available today appear to have as their primary goal the elucidation of proper principles of biblical interpretation . . . . [The goal of this text is to make] the translation of hermeneutical theory into the practical steps needed to interpret a biblical passage.”  Can you explain what you mean by that?

HV: When I wrote the original draft of the hermeneutics text, both theology and psychology often focused on writing lofty discussions about theory, either theological theory or psychological theory.

It was at this time (mid-1970s) that some psychologists started saying that we needed to start “giving psychology away.”  By that they meant that we as psychologists and writers needed to start explaining psychological concepts in a way that was understandable and practically useful for the average person in the streets.

I took that same concept and applied it to the way I composed the hermeneutics text.  Instead of confining my discussion to primarily hermeneutical principles I asked the question: “If I were to translate those principles into the practical steps a person would need to take to accurately interpret God’s intended meaning, what would those practical steps be?”  Thus my text (now in a revised edition with the addition of Dr. Karelynne Ayayo as a second author), attempts to give readers an introduction to the theory behind hermeneutics, but then also the practical steps every Christian can use to discover God’s intended meaning for each passage of God’s Word.

Q: How can hermeneutics help us in the study of prophecy?

HV: Probably the study of prophecy is one of the most complicated areas of hermeneutics to study.  There are very committed and sincere believers who hold very different hermeneutical views on this topic. 

There is one part of this controversy about which there is more agreement.  Prophecy can mean one of two things.  One kind of prophecy is when a prophet speaks forth a message from God telling us how we should be living.  It often contains a confrontation if we are not living Godly lives.  However, it sometimes includes words of comfort from God if we are going through persecution or difficult times.  This kind of prophecy is easier to interpret because it uses the same interpretive methods we use in all the rest of the Bible.

The second type of prophecy is when God predicts something that is going to happen in the future.  There is a related genre called apocalyptic (found in portions of Daniel and the book of Revelation) which also does this.  Apocalyptic uses words and stories symbolically to refer to actual events that will occur in the future, but may not occur in the literal way the original prophecy is given.  For example, when the book of Revelation talks about battles at the end of time in the land of Israel it mentions squads of horses arrayed for battle.  Does this mean that the battle will actually be waged with horses, or are the horses symbolic of more modern means of warfare such as tanks, etc.?  Or is it even more symbolic, and is instead a description of a spiritual battle (rather than a physical battle) between the forces of good and the forces of evil?

The controversy is a valid one and one where committed believers take varying points of view.  We probably will not know the whole truth accurately until eternity.  A good thing to remember is that no one takes everything in the book of Revelation literally and no one takes everything symbolically.  We all do a mixture of both.  The difference is in how much we take literally and how much we take symbolically.  As in all of hermeneutics, the most important question is “What did God mean when He inspired this book?”  Because apocalyptic is such a foreign genre to us, its probably wise for us to be humble and recognize we won’t know definitively until Christ returns.

Q: Could you explain how to let go of our predisposed ideas if they conflict with what is found in Scripture?

HV: We all bring “preunderstandings” to our interpretation of life and our interpretation of God’s Word.  We are all affected by what we’ve been taught by our parents, by our previous religious leaders, by our friends, and by the conclusions we’ve drawn from previous experiences.

Thus no one sees the world or interprets God’s Word without wearing a set of glasses that are affected by those prior experiences, or what we’ve called in the previous paragraph as our “preunderstandings.”

The wise person knows that his or her preunderstandings can affect how he or she interprets Scripture and thus always retains a measure of humility about his or her interpretations.  The closed-minded person maintains his previous interpretations dogmatically, and as a result, stops growing intellectually and spiritually.

One of the beautiful things about Scripture is that it is simple enough so that everyone can understand what they need to understand in order to accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior.  However, God’s Word is deep enough so that even the most intelligent Christian can learn new things about God as long as they are alive.  When we stop being willing to learn, that is the point where we stop growing.

I think humility–the willingness to admit I don’t know it all–enhances any person’s personality and the opposite–pridefulness–turns off most people who view it, plus it’s totally unwarranted.  None of us knows it all, and to believe we do is delusional thinking.

I intentionally continue to expose myself to discussions among Christians who take differing points of view on various topics.  Zondervan Publishers has an excellent series of books called the Counterpoint Series that has chapters written by, and dialogue between, Christians who take differing views on topics such as the millennium, whether miraculous gifts are still for today, differing views on the role women should play in church leadership, differing views on the creation of the earth and human beings, and a host of other issues.  I find by reading them I learn lots of new perspectives and discover that sincere Christians see many of these issues in markedly different ways and interpret various Bible passages in very different ways.

For Christians, understanding what God has said about Himself accurately is more important than maintaining the stance I was taught at an earlier time in my life.

With the above philosophy in mind, I find its not hard to keep learning, and to occasionally change my mind on an issue.  A couple of my favorite quotes related to the above are:

“Everyone is right about something but no one is right about everything.”

Ken Wilber

and

“None of us understands [anything] well enough that we can stop learning from all of us.”

Frank Pittman

Q: Why do evangelical theologians reject many of the interpretive theories of Schleiermacher and other liberal theologians and groups, could you prove or show us some mistakes of Schleiermacher's  for example?

HV: For this question, I don't have the time to find specific examples (we're grading final exams right now, and then I have to start preparing for summer classes), but I think the general concern is that liberal theologians view the Bible as having been written by humans and includes a lot of human error.

Compare this with the beliefs of evangelicals (pages 29-41), who believe that while human beings wrote the Bible they were inspired by God to write what He wanted them to write.  Since God is a truthful God, he did not inspire things that were not true, or things that reflected the erroneous views of the culture of that time.

Thank you very much. 

HV: I hope the above has been helpful to you as an introduction to the topic of hermeneutics.

Abdur-Rahman Abou Almajd: Sure, it's clear and easy to understand, thank you very much professor Henry Virkler.