Module 5: The Literal Schools Part 1- Jews through the Reformers
The Literal Schools
Literal Method – to accept as basic the literal rendering of the sentences unless by virtue of the nature of the sentence, phrase, or clause, within the sentence, this is not possible Very good definition
A. Jewish Literalism –
Ezra is considered the first Jewish interpreter of the Bible. (ref. Pg. 45, 2nd Para)
1. The Isrealites are gathered when the law is found, and Ezra had to speak in Aramaic as he read the Hebrew.. This was the first instance of Biblical interpretation.
2. From their Bablyonian captivity they had lost so much of their culture and faith, that they had to create practices that would help them maintain the Jewish heritage since they were no longer in the Holy Land i.e. Jerusalem. The results were mixed.
3. They had two schools of Jewish Hermeneutics when they came back to Israel:
a. Karaites – The literalists
b. Kabalists – The Allegorists
4. The basic Jewish Hermeneutic principles that emerged:
a. A word must be understood in terms of it’s sentence; and a sentence in terms it’s context.
b. Scriptures dealing with similar topics should be compared, and that in some instances a third scripture would relieve the apparent contradiction between two scriptures.
c. A clearer passage is to be given preference over an obscure one.
d. Pay close attention to grammer, spelling, and figures of speech. Looking at the literal uses of language.
e. By the use of logic, we can determine the application of scripture to those problems in life scripture has not specifically treated.
f. They believed that God adapted His revelation to the recipients of it. (God came down, and poured out what He knew into our finite minds.) The perpescuity of God’s word (It’s clarity.) Accomodation and cultural conditioning of Divine revelation. (He allows us to understand it.)
5. The major weakness of their system was “hyper-literalism” – or “letterism”- In their intense devotion to the details of the text, they missed the essential and made mountains out of the incidental.
6. This led to fantastic interpretations of scriptures which were compounded by the enormous authority given to tradition.
a. Letterism and allegorism formed an alliance and this created:
i. “Notarikon” -Each letter of a word was to stand for another word.
ii. “Gemetria” – It associated numerical values to words for arbitrary associations to other verses. Bible Code??
iii. “Termura” – You change the letters around where so to extract new meanings from old words.
b. Some valuable exegetical work did come from those that did not take the extremes.
B. Syrian School of Antioch –
The first Protestant school of Hermeneutics flourished from the city of Antioch.
i. As a school, it influenced Jerome (the scholar responsible for the Vulgate) and modulated the allegorism of Alexandria in the west. It had influence.
ii. They asserted that the literal was plain literal and figurative literal. (They broke it into two parts)
1. Plain literal sentence – a straight forward sentence with no figures of speech i.e. God created the heavens and the earth….
2. Figurative literal sentence – a figure of speech, "under the shadow of His wings"
iii. Dogmatic exegesis eventually developed into Roman Catholic Authoritarian exegesis; but the Syrians insisted that the meaning of the bible was it’s historical and grammatical meaning, and interpretations must so be justified.
iv. The Syrians insisted on the reality of the Old Testament events. (The allegorists tried to bury the historicity of the Bible)
v. According to the Syrians, the historical and the messianic were blended together like woof and warp. Jesus can be found in the Old Testament. Bottom Line: History does reflect the Salvific message.
vi. The relationship of the OT & NT was made typological and not allegorical. Their commonality, their flow, was made so by types (shadows of things to come). These were plain. (i.e. you can find the "code book" of “types” in the book of Hebrews)
vii. They admitted that the unity of the bible was Christological and that the bond between
the two testaments is prophetic – predictive and typological) and was a progressive revelation throughout history.
1. Typological – prophetic in the sense of things to come (i.e. the temple symbolic of the Kingship of Christ)
2. Predictive – Christ concealed, but foreshadowed through “types”
viii. The result of these principles was some of the finest exetegical literature of ancient times.
C. Victorines
i. Great scholarship came from an Abby of St. Victor in Paris. They were influenced by the Jews for literalism, but they also insisted that liberal arts, history, and geography were basics in the understanding of exegesis.
ii. The literal rather than a preliminary of superficial study was the basic study of the bible. True interpretation of the bible was exegesis, not eisegesis.
D. The Reformers –
i. The Syrian school affected the Victorines and thus became the essential theory of the Reformers - thus Protestant hermeneutics.
ii. There was a "hermeneutical reformation" which preceded the ecclesiastical reformation.
iii. There were two main factors that prepared the way for the reformation in terms of hermeneutics.
1. The philosophical system of Occam –
a. Martin Luther was trained under this philosophy.
b. In this system we find a bold statement for that period of time that human reason and revelation were separated.
i. Human reason’s territory is nature, philosophy, and science.
ii. Revelation’s territory - receive revelation through faith (trusting God, etc.), salvation (knowing who I am in God), and theology (understanding God’s communicable and incommunicable attributes).
c. Grace and nature – Whatever we know about God, we know by revelation and NOT by reason.
d. Therefore, the authority for theological dogma rested solely on Divine Revelation, and therefore on the Bible.
e. Luther was well trained to make this his starting point.
2. The renewed study of Hebrew and Greek –
a. The Renaissance brought a renewed interest in Greek.
b. Erasmus published the first Greek New Testament in modern times in 1516 a.d., only one year before Martin Luther tacked his 96 thesis on the Wittenburg door.
c. Hebrew testament was printed in 1494.
iv. Luther’s background in the languages-
1. Luther learned Latin while a priest, and thus could handle the Latin Vulgate. He also knew Greek and Hebrew.
2. He had a photographic memory which helped in public debate.
3. Therefore, he was well prepared for exegesis.
v. Luther’s hermeneutical principles are broken down:
1. Psychological principle – Faith and illumination are the personal and spiritual requisites for an interpreter, and thus, prayer and meditation are a part of that.
2. Authority principle – The Bible is the final and supreme authority and is above all ecclesiastical authority or church authority. How is this compared to Catholic hermeneutics?
3. The Literal principle –
a. “Every word should be allowed to stand in its natural meaning, and that should not be abandoned unless faith forces us to it.” Quote from Luther.
b. The sub-principles of the literal principle:
i. Luther despised allegory as was used by the Catholics. However, he used it from time to time when it typified Christ and not the papacy. In other words he did not completely break from using it. (Notice the Lutheran Church today.)
ii. The primacy of the original languages. He felt preachers should seek learning the original languages for apologetics sake.
iii. The historical and grammatical principle. The interpreter must give attention to grammer, times, circumstances, and context of the passage.
4. Sufficiency principle – (1 Pet 2:9) The Bible is clear enough
a. The perspicuity of scripture
b. To Luther, the perspicuity of the Word, and the priesthood of the believer are indispensable.
c. The bible is clear enough, the believer is competent, and scripture interprets scripture.
5. Christological principle – The end of interpretation was not the literal, but it was to find Christ. If you will interpret well and securely and take Christ with you for He is the man with whom everything concerns.
a. Luther felt free to challenge anything not Christological.
6. Law-Gospel principle – We must carefully distinguish the two in scripture. These two major theological divisions are split, by Luther, between the OT, and NT .
a. God’s word is about human sin. The purpose of the law was to drive us to our knees under a burden of guilt. (to extract our need for God.
b. God’s grace is the power and provision to save, effectively removing that burden of guilt.
vi. John Calvin – 1st scientific interpreter. He approached the scriptures with all of Luther’s principles, and then began to develop doctrines and theology on God and man.
1. He wrote “The Institutes”. Luther broke into the Reformation with a new Hermeneutic, but it was Calvin who exemplified it with his touch of genius. He made it a very clear theology that could not be attacked.
2. Calvin said that the illumination of the spirit was the necessary spiritual preparation for the interpreter.
3. He rejected allegorical interpretation.
4. He believed in scripture interpreting scripture, and the importance of studying grammer, philology (the study of words), the context of the scripture, and comparing similar scriptures.
5. He showed caution in interpretation. Messianic prophecy for the historical background should be thoroughly studied first before any doctrine can be established.
Lecture Question:
In what ways do we see that "Literalism" helped the church go forward and escape the abuses of the Catholic Church?
Literal Method – to accept as basic the literal rendering of the sentences unless by virtue of the nature of the sentence, phrase, or clause, within the sentence, this is not possible Very good definition
A. Jewish Literalism –
Ezra is considered the first Jewish interpreter of the Bible. (ref. Pg. 45, 2nd Para)
1. The Isrealites are gathered when the law is found, and Ezra had to speak in Aramaic as he read the Hebrew.. This was the first instance of Biblical interpretation.
2. From their Bablyonian captivity they had lost so much of their culture and faith, that they had to create practices that would help them maintain the Jewish heritage since they were no longer in the Holy Land i.e. Jerusalem. The results were mixed.
3. They had two schools of Jewish Hermeneutics when they came back to Israel:
a. Karaites – The literalists
b. Kabalists – The Allegorists
4. The basic Jewish Hermeneutic principles that emerged:
a. A word must be understood in terms of it’s sentence; and a sentence in terms it’s context.
b. Scriptures dealing with similar topics should be compared, and that in some instances a third scripture would relieve the apparent contradiction between two scriptures.
c. A clearer passage is to be given preference over an obscure one.
d. Pay close attention to grammer, spelling, and figures of speech. Looking at the literal uses of language.
e. By the use of logic, we can determine the application of scripture to those problems in life scripture has not specifically treated.
f. They believed that God adapted His revelation to the recipients of it. (God came down, and poured out what He knew into our finite minds.) The perpescuity of God’s word (It’s clarity.) Accomodation and cultural conditioning of Divine revelation. (He allows us to understand it.)
5. The major weakness of their system was “hyper-literalism” – or “letterism”- In their intense devotion to the details of the text, they missed the essential and made mountains out of the incidental.
6. This led to fantastic interpretations of scriptures which were compounded by the enormous authority given to tradition.
a. Letterism and allegorism formed an alliance and this created:
i. “Notarikon” -Each letter of a word was to stand for another word.
ii. “Gemetria” – It associated numerical values to words for arbitrary associations to other verses. Bible Code??
iii. “Termura” – You change the letters around where so to extract new meanings from old words.
b. Some valuable exegetical work did come from those that did not take the extremes.
B. Syrian School of Antioch –
The first Protestant school of Hermeneutics flourished from the city of Antioch.
i. As a school, it influenced Jerome (the scholar responsible for the Vulgate) and modulated the allegorism of Alexandria in the west. It had influence.
ii. They asserted that the literal was plain literal and figurative literal. (They broke it into two parts)
1. Plain literal sentence – a straight forward sentence with no figures of speech i.e. God created the heavens and the earth….
2. Figurative literal sentence – a figure of speech, "under the shadow of His wings"
iii. Dogmatic exegesis eventually developed into Roman Catholic Authoritarian exegesis; but the Syrians insisted that the meaning of the bible was it’s historical and grammatical meaning, and interpretations must so be justified.
iv. The Syrians insisted on the reality of the Old Testament events. (The allegorists tried to bury the historicity of the Bible)
v. According to the Syrians, the historical and the messianic were blended together like woof and warp. Jesus can be found in the Old Testament. Bottom Line: History does reflect the Salvific message.
vi. The relationship of the OT & NT was made typological and not allegorical. Their commonality, their flow, was made so by types (shadows of things to come). These were plain. (i.e. you can find the "code book" of “types” in the book of Hebrews)
vii. They admitted that the unity of the bible was Christological and that the bond between
the two testaments is prophetic – predictive and typological) and was a progressive revelation throughout history.
1. Typological – prophetic in the sense of things to come (i.e. the temple symbolic of the Kingship of Christ)
2. Predictive – Christ concealed, but foreshadowed through “types”
viii. The result of these principles was some of the finest exetegical literature of ancient times.
C. Victorines
i. Great scholarship came from an Abby of St. Victor in Paris. They were influenced by the Jews for literalism, but they also insisted that liberal arts, history, and geography were basics in the understanding of exegesis.
ii. The literal rather than a preliminary of superficial study was the basic study of the bible. True interpretation of the bible was exegesis, not eisegesis.
D. The Reformers –
i. The Syrian school affected the Victorines and thus became the essential theory of the Reformers - thus Protestant hermeneutics.
ii. There was a "hermeneutical reformation" which preceded the ecclesiastical reformation.
iii. There were two main factors that prepared the way for the reformation in terms of hermeneutics.
1. The philosophical system of Occam –
a. Martin Luther was trained under this philosophy.
b. In this system we find a bold statement for that period of time that human reason and revelation were separated.
i. Human reason’s territory is nature, philosophy, and science.
ii. Revelation’s territory - receive revelation through faith (trusting God, etc.), salvation (knowing who I am in God), and theology (understanding God’s communicable and incommunicable attributes).
c. Grace and nature – Whatever we know about God, we know by revelation and NOT by reason.
d. Therefore, the authority for theological dogma rested solely on Divine Revelation, and therefore on the Bible.
e. Luther was well trained to make this his starting point.
2. The renewed study of Hebrew and Greek –
a. The Renaissance brought a renewed interest in Greek.
b. Erasmus published the first Greek New Testament in modern times in 1516 a.d., only one year before Martin Luther tacked his 96 thesis on the Wittenburg door.
c. Hebrew testament was printed in 1494.
iv. Luther’s background in the languages-
1. Luther learned Latin while a priest, and thus could handle the Latin Vulgate. He also knew Greek and Hebrew.
2. He had a photographic memory which helped in public debate.
3. Therefore, he was well prepared for exegesis.
v. Luther’s hermeneutical principles are broken down:
1. Psychological principle – Faith and illumination are the personal and spiritual requisites for an interpreter, and thus, prayer and meditation are a part of that.
2. Authority principle – The Bible is the final and supreme authority and is above all ecclesiastical authority or church authority. How is this compared to Catholic hermeneutics?
3. The Literal principle –
a. “Every word should be allowed to stand in its natural meaning, and that should not be abandoned unless faith forces us to it.” Quote from Luther.
b. The sub-principles of the literal principle:
i. Luther despised allegory as was used by the Catholics. However, he used it from time to time when it typified Christ and not the papacy. In other words he did not completely break from using it. (Notice the Lutheran Church today.)
ii. The primacy of the original languages. He felt preachers should seek learning the original languages for apologetics sake.
iii. The historical and grammatical principle. The interpreter must give attention to grammer, times, circumstances, and context of the passage.
4. Sufficiency principle – (1 Pet 2:9) The Bible is clear enough
a. The perspicuity of scripture
b. To Luther, the perspicuity of the Word, and the priesthood of the believer are indispensable.
c. The bible is clear enough, the believer is competent, and scripture interprets scripture.
5. Christological principle – The end of interpretation was not the literal, but it was to find Christ. If you will interpret well and securely and take Christ with you for He is the man with whom everything concerns.
a. Luther felt free to challenge anything not Christological.
6. Law-Gospel principle – We must carefully distinguish the two in scripture. These two major theological divisions are split, by Luther, between the OT
a. God’s word is about human sin. The purpose of the law was to drive us to our knees under a burden of guilt. (to extract our need for God.
b. God’s grace is the power and provision to save, effectively removing that burden of guilt.
vi. John Calvin – 1st scientific interpreter. He approached the scriptures with all of Luther’s principles, and then began to develop doctrines and theology on God and man.
1. He wrote “The Institutes”. Luther broke into the Reformation with a new Hermeneutic, but it was Calvin who exemplified it with his touch of genius. He made it a very clear theology that could not be attacked.
2. Calvin said that the illumination of the spirit was the necessary spiritual preparation for the interpreter.
3. He rejected allegorical interpretation.
4. He believed in scripture interpreting scripture, and the importance of studying grammer, philology (the study of words), the context of the scripture, and comparing similar scriptures.
5. He showed caution in interpretation. Messianic prophecy for the historical background should be thoroughly studied first before any doctrine can be established.
Lecture Question:
In what ways do we see that "Literalism" helped the church go forward and escape the abuses of the Catholic Church?
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