The Relevance of Scripture: A Hermeneutical History

In 1670 Baruch Spinoza anonymously published his Theological-Political Treatise. With this work he created modern Biblical criticism. Spinoza had a much larger goal in writing the treatise. He wanted to undermine the political establishment of his day by undermining their Bible. But Spinoza was seeking more than just religious freedom in a society that rigorously censored what was printed or taught. He wanted to free society from any kind of religious influence, since liberty and tolerance, in his view, were incompatible with religion or theology.

In seeking to achieve this goal Spinoza had to tread carefully. He could not forthrightly state his aims. He instead made seemingly uncontroversial claims. But in putting these claims together he concluded that the goal of interpretation is to discover the historical meaning of Scripture. The interpreter, Spinoza said, needs to distinguish between truth (as determined by reason) and the meaning of the text. Thus for the first time the text of Scripture was made a historical artifact rather than a guide for thought and life. The goal of Spinoza’s project was the “irrelevance of biblical authority.”¹

Even though Spinoza intended his new approach to the Bible to undermine religion, liberal Christians attempted to use Spinoza’s method while holding on to their religion. This created an “ugly ditch” between history and religion that the liberals did not know how to bridge. Oftentimes they would go looking in Scripture for kernels of philosophical truth wrapped in historically-bound husks which they thought could be discarded.

By the late twentieth century, however, scholars serving in theologically liberal denominations increasingly realized that this approach to interpreting the Bible was of very little use to the church. These scholars still reject the orthodox view of inspiration and inerrancy, and they still accept many of the critical theories about how the Bible was written. Face-value readings and applications of Scripture are therefore not a possibility for them. To cross the ugly ditch created by Spinoza, these scholars appeal to the allegorical approach practiced in the first centuries of the church.²

The ancient Greeks used the allegorical method to conform the writings of Homer (which they viewed as religious texts) to the philosophies that had grown up later. The church fathers picked up on this approach to face challenges from unconverted Jews who argued that literal interpretation could not support the view that Jesus was the Messiah and from heretics who claimed that literal interpretation proved the god of the Old Testament was evil. The church fathers also used allegorical interpretation to make Scripture relevant. Apart from allegorical interpretation, Origen wondered what benefit could be found from knowing of Lot’s incest, Abraham’s polygamy, and of the various begettings and battles in Scripture.

Though the allegorical method continued on into the Middle Ages, the literal meaning of Scripture began to gain more attention.³ The medieval interpreters began to stress that a right understanding of the literal sense of Scripture was a necessary foundation for the other senses. Heretics had begun to use allegorical interpretation to forward their agendas, and this helped drive the greater appreciation for the literal sense.

With the Reformation the tide turned decisively toward literal interpretation. One Reformer even completely rejected the allegorical method of interpretation as Satanic.⁴ The Reformers instead emphasized placing a text within its context. This contextual interpretation enabled them to see the present-day relevance of even obscure parts of Scripture. Instead of using allegory to make a historical narrative relevant, they demonstrated the theological significance of a passage by showing its place in the book’s argument and thereby connecting it to the major themes of the book.

For instance, Origen wondered what benefit the reader of Scripture has in knowing that Abraham was a polygamist. But the Reformers recognized that the Hagar account occurs in narratives in which justification and faith are major themes. In taking Hagar as a wife, Abraham is not receiving the promise by faith alone. Thus Abraham and Sarah both still believe the promise of God, but they are seeking to achieve the promise by their own efforts. The application for us is the same one Paul makes in Galatians 4—justification is by faith alone and not by faith and works.

The way to discover the relevance of Scripture today is neither to return to the allegorical approach of the Church Fathers nor to embrace the readerresponse theories of postmodernism. The way forward is to reject the critical theories of Spinoza and to embrace the belief that Scripture, in its literal sense, interpreted contextually, remains God’s relevant Word for people of every age.

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Brian Collins is the Biblical Worldview Lead Specialist at BJU Press in Greenville, SC.

(Originally published in FrontLine • November/December 2012. Click here to subscribe to the magazine.)

1. J. Samuel Preus, Spinoza and the Irrelevance of Biblical Authority (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001). [↩]
2. These scholars also advocate approaches to reading Scripture in which communities of readers determine the meaning of texts (rather than the author communicating his intention through the words of the text). But the Bible everywhere teaches that God intends readers to grasp his intentions. Throughout Scripture readers encounter the phrases “Thus says the Lord,” “declaration of Yahweh,” or some similar phrase. Often these words are connected to commands and judgments for failing to obey commands. The implication is that the reader can and ought to follow the author’s intention. The claim that meaning is regulated by community socialization also fails to account for Jesus’ commission to carry His commands beyond the Christian community to the entire world. When the apostles carry out this commission, they are able to reason with people in other “faith communities” from the Scripture (Acts 2:22–36; 8:30–35; 17:2, 3; 18:4, 19). [↩]
3. The Oxford English Dictionary notes multiple senses for the word “literal.” “Literal” may be meant a non-allegorical interpretation according to the normal rules of language (OED sense 3.a.). But “literal” can also mean interpretation that does not take metaphorical language into account (OED sense 3.b.). It is important to keep these two senses distinct in hermeneutical discussions. The patristic writers failed to do this and thus appealed to clear metaphors in Scripture to justify allegorical hermeneutics. Some conflate the two senses when they are argue that interpretation should be as literal as possible. Being literal in sense 3.a. is necessary but being literal in sense 3.b. will lead to misunderstanding the text. [↩]
4. John Calvin, Commentaries on the First Book of Moses Called Genesis, trans. John King (1847; repr., Grand Rapids: Baker, 1996), 1:114. Calvin did spiritualize kingdom promises given to Israel and apply them to the church. But Calvin did not view this as allegorizing Scripture. According to Calvin, the physical language of the promises was an accommodation to “the capacities of a rude and weak people.” Calvin determined which prophecies were intended to be understood spiritually by looking at what had been fulfilled and what had not been fulfilled in Christ’s first coming. The difference between Calvin and the patristic and medieval interpreters is the difference between recognizing when an author is using allegory and when the interpreter is using an allegorical method. This means that the critic of Calvin (and those who interpret similarly) must critique his understanding of what the Old Testament authors are doing. It is not sufficient to exhort these interpreters to interpret literally. In their minds, they are. I would critique Calvin along two lines. First, by claiming that the physical promises are accommodations that actually point to greater spiritual realities, Calvin minimized the fact that God’s plan of redemption includes the physical world. The Bible encourages saints to look forward to living on a regenerated earth (Matt. 19:28). (See Michael J. Vlach, Has the Church Replaced Israel? [Nashville: B&H, 2010], 96, 116.) Once the physical is re-admitted as a key part of God’s plan of redemption, the possibility that these as-yet-unfulfilled prophecies will be fulfilled in the future becomes clear, and Calvin’s criteria for discovering which of the prophecies are to be understood spiritually falls away. [↩]