Replies

**Good eschatology requires good hermeneutics.**

Now you didn't learn that from scripture...You learned that from someone who doesn't like what the scripture says in plain language...

Incorrect. I learned that from many people that adore what the Bible says in plain language... as opposed to those who want to apply what they think the authors were trying to convey according to an historically ignorant understanding of Scripture.

Naw, but thanks anyway...I'll skip Herman Utics and trying to figure out what the scripture means...I'll just read it and believe what it says instead...

Respectfully friend, you'll read it and believe what you think it says according to poor interpretation based on historical ignorance of the meaning of terms used in the Bible instead of what the Scripture actually says.

Hermeneutics is not some special interpretation method conjured up to interpret the Bible in a special way in order to defend a set of beliefs against another. It is a textual criticism device that is applied to all historical works in order to better understand what the author of work was trying to convey when he or she wrote it. There are many different hermenuetical tools, what I was applying was Historical Hermeneutics. This tool is used most often in historical works as words and term usage changes rapidly within and across languages. I give you the Flinstone's Example on application of hermeneutics:

The last three lines of the Flinstone's theme song:
We'll have a doo time
a Yabba Doo time
We'll have a gay old time

Applying your "I'll just read it and believe what it says" method of interpretation I come to the conclusion that I would never let my children watch the immoral cartoon. No doubt, when the song writer wrote "we'll have a gay old time" he plainly wrote that Flinstones and the Rubbles were intending to have homosexual escapades...

...OR....

I can apply historical hermeneutics to the song. Let's see:

The Flinstones cartoon started in 1960. A quick etymological study of the word "gay" shows me that although it was used by homosexuals to describe themselves as far back as 1893, it's most common usage (and dictionary definition) in 1960 was

1. having or showing a merry, lively mood: gay spirits; gay music.
2. bright or showy: gay colors; gay ornaments.
3. given to or abounding in social or other pleasures: a gay social season.
4. licentious; dissipated; wanton: The baron is a gay old rogue with an eye for the ladies.

Soooo... I can safely (and rightly) interpret "we'll have a gay old time" as

we'll have a merry time, full of a lively mood

Whew! Good thing too, lest Dobson links Spongebob to Barney Rubble.

To not use hermeneutics and other tools of interpretation leads to silly interpretations based on ignorant methods of "just reading it and believing what it says instead."

To not use hermeneutics and other tools of interpretation leads to silly interpretations based on ignorant methods of "just reading it and believing what it says instead."

I found this idea on one site:

Literal: The plain and simple meaning of the text. Jesus supported the literal method, among others. …
If you are a Christian that believes in a literal 1000 year reign of Christ it should be interesting for you to know that this truth was basically hidden for over a thousand years before the reformation because of a decision made early on not to interpret Bible prophecy literally.

The author is trying to make a point of the (unsupportable) conclusion that the Church used the “literal method” to interpret the Bible until the 2nd or 3rd centuries when the “allegorical” method took over.

The irony in this author’s comments is that while the author decries the “allegorical method” because it requires a “secret meaning that only the super spiritual can understand,” he fails to realize that this dispensational way of interpreting the Bible requires it own gnosis, or secret meaning. After all, the secret pre-tribulational “rapture” that is so prominent in futurist thinking, is unknown in the Church until the 19th century. Even then it took decades for it to permeate out into a larger community. It has never been universally recognized by the Church, but is largely relegated to “Bible colleges” and independent churches of the “no creed but Christ” genre.

The author tries to link the rise of dispensationalism to the Protestant reformation, but the fact is that almost every Protestant church or denomination with legitimate, direct ties to the reformation (from Lutheran to Reformed to Presbyterian) has rejected and warned its members about the many, pernicious errors of dispensationalism.

The bottom line is that the “literal method” (as presently expressed) was not the method of Jesus, nor of the apostles, nor of the early Church fathers. The literal method was the method of various heretical groups, like the Ebionites and Arians.

If you wish to understand the relationship between futurist dispensationalism and the “literal method” I suggest you read Dispensationalism: Consistent Literalism by Grover Gunn, or The Myth of "Consistent Literalism" by Jack Van Deventer.

Van Deventer concludes his article with this statement:

These inconsistencies have caused many to distance themselves from dispensational literalism. Various "progressive dispensationalists" have rejected "as inadequate the strict literalist hermeneutic of earlier thinkers [and] no longer adhere to the sharp distinction between Israel and the church, but place both under the one program of God for the world. . . ." Others have rejected as "too simplistic" the literalism of their predecessors. This confusion over literalism has dispensationalists debating among themselves, searching for definition, and questioning the essentials of their system.