50 Key Concepts in Theology

Hermeneutics
Hermeneutics is the study of interpretation, both of texts and of life itself.
The word ‘hermeneutics’, meaning the science of interpretation, comes
from ‘Hermes’, the name of the messenger to the Greek gods. The question of
how the Bible should be interpreted has always been crucial to Christianity,
and hermeneutics soon became an important part of Christian theology. For
example, the early theologian Origen devised a scheme of interpretation
which distinguished between the literal, ethical and allegorical meanings of
Scripture.
But since the beginning of the nineteenth century hermeneutics has
assumed a central place in Christian theology. The Enlightenment challenged
the historical truth of Scripture: the reality of miracles, the existence of God
and the truth of the biblical account of creation. This forced biblical scholars
to develop a new, more ‘scientific’ approach to interpreting Scripture. This
became known as ‘the historical–critical method’, which attempted to
uncover both the historical basis of Scripture and the history of the
construction of the biblical texts. As a result, theologians started to distinguish
between the historical (true) and mythical (made-up) components of
Scripture. In addition, liberal theologians started to ask again about the
religious truth of Scripture and how the Christian message should be
interpreted for our contemporary context.
The nineteenth-century development of textual hermeneutics extended
into the twentieth century, not only with the emergence of new forms of
textual analysis – form criticism, redaction criticism and structuralism – but
with the development of ‘existential hermeneutics’, which studied how we
interpret life itself. Martin Heidegger, for example, argued that the
interpretation of our own personal existence (the so-called ‘Question of
Being’) is what makes us human, since animals do not enquire into the
significance of their lives.
The distinction between ‘textual’ and ‘existential’ (or ‘philosophical’)
hermeneutics is useful, but we have to be careful of making this distinction
too clear cut. Some theologians (for example, D. Z. Phillips and Don Cupitt)
argue that life itself is completely textual in nature; and there are others (for
example, Paul Ricoeur) who argue that texts can only be interpreted in the
light of our human existence.
At the centre of all hermeneutics is a ‘problem’ which is sometimes
called ‘the hermeneutic circle’. Because we all exist in time, our

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understanding is continually being changed by experience. As we change, our
interpretations of texts and life also change. Interpretation is a never-ending
circle of interactions between ourselves and our world. So, for example, the
biblical stories take on quite new meanings as we grow older and have new
life-experiences. Furthermore, this endless cycle of interpretation is
simultaneously happening in different ways for different people. As
Kierkegaard exclaimed: ‘And then the interpretations – 30,000 different
interpretations!’
The hermeneutic problem appears to make true and final interpretations
impossible. Karl Barth’s response is to say that God solves the problem of
hermeneutics through the Holy Spirit, who interprets everything for us, as it
says in the hymn: ‘Blind unbelief is sure to err and scan His work in vain,/
God is his own interpreter and he will make it plain.’ For others, such as John
Dominic Crossan, the ambiguity and plurality of interpretation is taken as a
positive virtue. He says that Jesus’ parables are intended precisely to subvert
‘religion that gives one final “word” about reality’.
The challenge of hermeneutics is to provide an account of interpretation
which is faithful to the plurality of possible meanings but, at the same time,
faithful to the quest for truth. The current consensus, which brings together
liberals such as David Tracy and conservatives such as Stanley Hauerwas, is
that narrative provides the best model for understanding a truth which has
many perspectives and which unfolds over time.
THINKERS
Rudolf Bultmann (1844–1976) argued that we must ‘demythologise’ the
biblical texts in order to reveal their essential message or kerygma (Greek for
‘preaching’).
Wilhelm Dilthey (1833–1911) argued that interpretation must be
grounded in the ‘lived experience’ (Erlebnis) of the individual.
Hans-Georg Gadamer (1900–2002 ) argued in Truth and Method that all
our interpretations are ‘prejudiced’ by our place in history and culture. So the
task of interpretation is to distinguish between our true and false prejudices.
We achieve this by a method that Gadamer called the ‘fusion of horizons’ in
which we engage in a ‘conversation’ with the thing being interpreted. It is in
the course of this conversation that our prejudices get ‘played out’ and the
truth emerges.
D. Z. Phillips (1934–2006) used Wittgenstein’s later philosophy to argue
that religion is a ‘language game’ that can only be understood within the

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‘form of life’ in which religious language is used.
Paul Ricoeur (1913–2005) argued that human existence is essentially
narrative in nature and that we must understand life in terms of its historical
and fictional stories.
Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768–1834): the pioneer of modern
hermeneutics who followed Herder in arguing that we must try to understand
the original context of a text and the mind of its author. There are two aspects
to interpretation: a ‘comparative’ approach which looks at all the contexts and
the objective data; and a ‘divinatory’ approach which is subjective and
intuitive.
Albert Schweitzer (1875–1965) wrote the world’s best-known book about
the Jesus of history, The Quest for the Historical Jesus. Schweitzer argued that
Jesus was an eschatological prophet who expected the world to come to an
imminent end.
Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951): a philosopher of religion who argued
that all human life must be understood within systems of language that he
called ‘language games’.
IDEAS
Deconstruction: a form of post-structuralism, pioneered by Jacques
Derrida, that seeks to demonstrate that there are no definitive meanings in
either texts or life in general.
Exegesis: the process of interpretation that tries to draw out the meaning
of a text.
Form Criticism: a technique of biblical criticism, devised by Herman
Gunkel, that tries to understand the cultural setting (Sitz im Leben) within
which an oral or written text would have been first written and used.
The hermeneutic circle: a concept invented by Schleiermacher to
describe the unending process of interpretation (see above).
The hermeneutic of suspicion: an approach to texts that assumes the
suppression of the voices of disempowered groups.
The historical–critical method: the dominant approach to Scripture since
the early nineteenth century, which tries to establish the historical truth behind
the biblical texts.
New Criticism: post-war literary criticism, associated with William
Empson and Northrop Frye, which emphasised the plurality and ambiguity of

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all textual interpretations.
New Hermeneutics: a name for the post-war revival of interest in
hermeneutics represented by thinkers such as Rudolf Bultmann and Ernst
Fuchs.
Post-structuralism: a philosophical outlook that regards all textual
structures and codes as unstable.
Reader-response Criticism: an approach to interpretation that says the
individual reader’s understanding of a text is always true.
Redaction Criticism: an approach to biblical criticism that tries to detect
the roles and attitudes of the editors of the scriptural material.
Structuralism: the analysis of texts in terms of their basic structures and
codes of meaning.
BOOKS
Anthony C. Thiselton, The Two Horizons: New Testament Hermeneutics
and Philosophical Description (Eerdmans, 1980)
Francis Watson, Text, Church and World: Biblical Interpretation in
Theological Perspective (Edinburgh, 1994)

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