Explain the Purpose of Hermeneutics

The authors set the groundwork in the first two chapters for the reader to have comprehension and understanding for the rest of the book. Therefore, the basis of the book is helping the reader to interpret and study the Bible. Fee and Stuart thoroughly discuss the process of interpretation. They stress the importance of correctly understanding what the reader is saying. Fee and Stuart stress that correct interpretation “brings relief to the mind as well as a prick or prod to the heart”

Dr. Leo Percer in his video presentation gave an excellent definition of Hermeneutics. He articulated that hermeneutics was an art and science of biblical interpretation. My thoughts concur with his, and in addition, hermeneutics could also be an in depth comprehension of biblical interpretation that relinquish the apprehension of one’s thoughts and focus mainly on how was the text develop through the intellect of the author. The role of author as stated by Dr. Percer is the “Supreme.” Nothing can be interpreted from the Bible without first engaging in research to determine what were the motivating factors involved that thrust him to write the text, or what was the anticipated outcome that the author wanted the readers to obtain.

To have a productive and constructive understanding of God it is a requirement for the reader to pay attention to context or risk missing the fundamental messages from God. To read as a contextualist one must process understanding of the scripture by consistently asking questions about context. To be a Fundamentalist is to not consider context and either believe a word for word literal account of the stories regardless of scientific evidence or to look and scientific evidence and regard the stories as untrue or implausible, completely missing the meanings carried within those stories. The important difference to determining meaning can be found in a reader who considers context in order to find these

In Pentecostalism, a variant of Christianity, the Bible is studied in many versions, to deepen the understanding of the adherent regarding Christianity, which can better help them make informed decisions in terms of the religious practice, which imposes validity in the dynamism of Pentecostalism (Walsh, 2008).

The source of the Fundamentalists’ faith is the Bible. But what do the Fundamentalists believe about the Bible? This is the question I am trying to answer for myself. I will present my understanding of the Fundamentalists’ view of the Bible along with my Catholic view of the Bible. My mission is not to offend, but to open a dialogue between the two views. I know from experience that this is a very touchy topic. The best way to go about conversing with someone of different beliefs, I believe, is to see their belief in its best light. I believe it is important to develop a sense of respect for the variety of ways people experience the divine in the lives. Keeping that in mind, I give you my interpretation of the Fundamentalist and the Catholic view of the Bible. Both Catholics and Fundamentalists agree that the Bible is a divinely inspired, infallible, and authoritative means for people to know Christ. There are some distinctions between the Catholics’ and the Fundamentalists’ view of the Bible. Both Catholics and Fundamentalists believe the Bible to be inspired by God; they believe the Bible to be the Word of God. Fundamentalists place most of their emphasis on God as the author of the bible. They do not pay much attention to the human side of the Bible’s authorship. Fundamentalists believe in total word-for-word inspiration of the Bible. The Catholic Church does not teach that God merely dictated

Machen stated that the New Testament books “are regarded by all serious historians as genuine products of the first Christian generation.” (PAGE 18) The statement merely could be false without Machen’s willingness to terminate as un-serious all historians who ignore the validity and authority of the New Testament. The argument of the New Testament authenticity is still conflicted between in liberalism and typical denominations. A weakness in Machen’s argument on Doctrine was while Machen indicates that the New testament could be understood through the perspective of the “primitive Jerusalem church” (PAGE 22), no supportive agreement was found what the primitive church looked

The association further believes there is only one true interpretation of Scripture, although there may be several applications. The true meaning lies in the text and is that which the divinely-guided author willed to convey. It is recoverable through careful application of a literal (grammatical, historical, contextual) method of interpretation under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, and in the community of Christ. The Holy Spirit illumines the text, enabling the reader to embrace the significance of what God has communicated, and to see the glory of Christ in the Word of God. To sum this up, they believe they are right about

Most Christians would assert that the Bible has importance for their faith and understanding in how to live out their beliefs. However, there is great diversity in how exactly this takes shape. At issue is one’s perspective on how to read the Bible and the authority that is granted to Scripture. Differing viewpoints can be placed along a continuum ranging from conservative to liberal perspectives on the role of Scripture. Sparks (n.d.) highlights the hallmarks of different traditions based on a number of factors such as how the Bible is read, views of inerrancy, and the authority of tradition. Both Protestant Fundamentalists and Conservative Evangelicals hold to biblical inerrancy as a hallmark of their faith. However, the two diverge regarding

Osborne, Grant R. The Hermeneutical Spiral: A Comprehensive Introduction to Biblical Interpretation. 2nd ed. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2006.

Liberal is a word whose meaning has multiple connotations. For many the word is synonymous with freedom and open-mindedness. For others, it refers to people and ideas that lack practicality and discipline. When the Puritans came to America in 1630, their leader John Winthrop told them to be liberal in spirit in a way that was like the prophet Nehemiah’s urgings and Matthew’s teachings of kindness. However, he also reminded his followers to balance benevolent generosity for strangers with prudent care for their families. He felt that kindness and liberality to the poor was the best way to show God’s love and grace. Winthrop felt that the Puritans should be willing to give up their desires to help provide the poor with the things that they needed. This is because materialism was thought to be counterproductive to the teachings of the Bible. The Bible teaches that one should have no god but God and that if a person focused too much on obtaining profit and materialistic pleasures they would perish. Since this period there has been a struggle in America to balance concern for oneself and one’s family with that of the community.

It should, however, be noted that biblical texts only appear to be contradictory when taken out of context. The importance of studying scripture as a whole is clearly illustrated by the happenings of September 11th: Muslim fundamentalists took the Koran's teaching on Holy War out of its context and used it to justify action against America. Many liberal theologians engage in hermeneutics, the study of interpretation and application of Biblical texts. They may reject literal interpretations in favour of establishing general rules from the Bible, thus maintaining that the Bible is not the inspired word of God, but simply a text from which we can learn about God and Christian teaching, and then apply this knowledge to our own lives.

There are many ways to interpret a text, but for text like the bible it take what we called the senses of Scripture to use as an application to understand the bible. In the Chapter 6 of the book “How Do Catholics Read the Bible” entitled “How do Catholics Interpret Scripture,” the author discuss three senses of Scripture in which are various ways relate how meaning of a text is interpret, which are in literal sense, spiritual sense and fuller sense. According the author, the chapter 7 “How do Catholics Interpret Scripture” “the definition of the literal sense repsect both the divine and human contaranito of the owrd of God in human language… and interpreting the text in its original historical and cultural context. It asserts that one arrives

Interpreters of the Bible have to be born again, must have passion to know God, have to have deep reverence for God, and depend on the Holy Spirit.

Biblical Interpretation is important and necessary so that we can understand what the text is saying, what the intended theological message is, and how to personally apply and teach these Scriptural truths to carry forward the Gospel in rescuing others from despair and death to hope and life, thus displaying His glory and growing His Kingdom. It is about finding what God is revealing about Himself and His Son Jesus Christ. Moreover, it is for us to know that God desires to have a relationship with us and for us to be set apart in a covenant relationship with Him to display holy lives that bring Him glory. Interpretation, using hermeneutical principles, help guide us in proper boundaries for interpreting Scripture so that we can reveal the intended meaning of the text. Without this, we run the risk of imposing our own ideas on the text, therefore misinterpreting. Misinterpreting can cause us to miss theological truths, administer the wrong application, and neglect or overlook the meaning of the text which weakens the impact of God’s truth in our personal lives as well as others we are teaching.

The critique of this model derives principally from the criticisms that can be levelled at the research methodology, particularly its non positivist approach, although a rationale for the single case study design and hermeneutic phenomenology research paradigm has been made above (Ch 5,6).