Let's talk about the principles of Biblical interpretation

Theology
1

So, let’s talk about the principles of Biblical interpretation, and why we need to utilize them and run our personal theories about Scripture and doctrine through them – as well as how we can test a doctrine or teaching to see if it is Biblical, or false, doctrine.

Let’s look at a list of the principles (I have placed them in categories according to how I study Scripture, but not everyone places them in the same):

There are three basic categories which the principles of Biblical interpretation fall into, they are:

1. Foundational Principles

2. “Word” Principles

3. “Text” Principles

The following is the five phases of analysis, which most theologians and familiar with:

1. Historical-Cultural analysis

2. Contextual analysis

3. Lexical-Syntactical analysis

4. Special literary analysis

5. Theological analysis

The following group of interpretational principles are within the Foundational Principles:

1. The Historical Principle (Historical-Cultural analysis)

2. The Cultural Principle (Historical-Cultural analysis)

3. The Covenant Principle (Historical-Cultural analysis)

4. The Harmony Principle (Contextual analysis)

5. The Topical Principle (Theological analysis)

6. The Contradiction Principle (Theological analysis)

7. The Purpose of Creation Principle

8. The Love of God (grace) Principle

9. The Progressive Revelation Principle

10. The Christo-centric Principle

11. The Full Mention Principle

12. The Application Principle

13. The Discrimination Principle

14. The Human Willingness Principe

15. The Bias Principle

The following group of interpretational principles are within the “Word” Principles:

16. The Word Definition Principle (Lexical-Syntactical analysis)

17. The Word Substitute Principle (Lexical-Syntactical analysis)

18. The Scriptural Definitions Principle (Lexical-Syntactical analysis)

19. The Grammar Principle (Lexical-Syntactical analysis)

20. The Figures of Speech Principle (Special Literary analysis)

21. The Unique Biblical Meanings Principle

22. The First Mention Principle

The following group of interpretational principles are within the “Text” Principles:

23. The Context Principle (Contextual analysis)

24. The Text Comparison Principle (Contextual analysis)

25. The Obvious Meaning Principle (Theological analysis)

26. The Scripture interprets Scripture Principle (Theological analysis)

27. The One Intended Meaning Principle (Theological analysis)

If permitted to do so, I will go through these individually and explain them in detail, and give examples of how violation or ignoring these principles always lead to false ideologies about a text, false teachings, and ultimately false doctrine.

Blessings.

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I stay away from exegesis! I found out what it meant, it’s interpreting what Christs last words were while he was hanging on the cross, and as a matter of fact, I also found the definite answer, “It is finished” begins Psalm 119, which is a longer work and has at least supposedly an outcome, since a psalm can be said as a prayer, and they were intended to be. Before Saint Augustine, King David. Prior to the classical world, the archaic world. Exegesis is about the last wills and testaments of crucified saints, now in a sober church setting that does mean Christian victims of the crucifixion! But in spite of Adrianne Von Speyer’s many long treaties on it, I’ve also read and heard about the crucifixion of Versingtrox, who was only an assassin, and the fact that the Heruli were sold into slavery as well as Jesus and the apostles along with his family in that Judas-Caiphus meting. I think the problem is that I’ve seen too many Monty Python :snake: pictures to be perfectly honest. I’m not big on exegesis. But you are! Fascinating topic, what are your insights? According to more scholarly writers I’ve spent time on truly traditional Christian exegesis follows the outline of precedent set by John in revelation, who recorded and reported Jesus last words after the last words on the cross, and at that from heaven to which he was ascended. Tell me your insights, actually I’m really interested in the exegesis of the various people who met him live during the forty days after his resurrection before he ascended from the Mount of olives. :olive: what do you have on that, because the many masses all encountered him. How does level common man exegesis like that effect your personal relationship with religion or your prayer life?

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@OptionalAlgebra I was wondering the same things - but I think it was Versingetorix. Strangled by Caesar. Or not. Who knows, I mean really.

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@BlueDragon I have one question before we head down this happy trail. Does your AI talk to you? Like, tell you how wise you are and all that?

Just wondering.

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The problem with exegesis is not religion, what happens is that if you study the gospels, you’ll work that out. Jesus was a rabbi, and he could and did read and recite temple scrolls. That’s was his professional occupation, Bible scholar. There’s more to last words than that or canonized sainthood, too. What happens is that there are these people called “probate attorneys”, whose whole practice is to decipher last wills and testaments, which is not difficult in procedure than scriptural exegesis, it’s just different in kind. Most estates are in probate because the person died without leaving a notarized sworn statement titled “their last will and testament”. Probate law is tedious, complex, and involves insurance scans quite often. And you think that’s bad, wait until you find out about habius corpus. That’s literally predicted on the question of where Jesus body went when the stone was rolled away. You have to be a real Martha to do that kind of labor, remember how she’s the sister with the works and Mary is the sister with the faith?! But faint not, for probate law there is hope….

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I interpret “Do not steal” as “Do not steal.”

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I stay away from exegesis! I found out what it meant, it’s interpreting what Christs last words were while he was hanging on the cross, and as a matter of fact, I also found the definite answer, “It is finished” begins Psalm 119, which is a longer work and has at least supposedly an outcome, since a psalm can be said as a prayer, and they were intended to be.

Actually, that is not what exegesis means…at all. It means critically thinking and examining whatever text you might be examining at that particular time. Exegesis is the opposite of eisegesis, which is reading your own personal bias into a text.

How does level common man exegesis like that effect your personal relationship with religion or your prayer life?

Exegesis helps us discover the truth of Scripture, and that is important because if what you believe about Scripture is false, then you live your life according to false ideologies…and according to Scripture one can only get saved through truth. Therefore, knowing and applying the principles of Biblical interpretation helps us to correctly interpret Scripture when we allow the Holy Spirit to guide us through the process. This can only enrich our personal relationship with God (not with “religion” which is man’s second greatest enemy) as well as our prayer life, since the two go hand in hand.

Blessings.

8

Yes, we do not really need to run every passage through the principles…“Jesus wept” is pretty easy for anyone to understand. The main purpose of the principles is to help us come to the truth when it comes to doctrinal statements, because there are no one-hit wonders when it comes to doctrine.

For example, there are over 300 passages concerning eternal life, and if we - like some do - only take 3 passages out of 300 and develop our doctrine on those three, it is the same as taking a 300 piece jig-saw puzzle, separating 3 pieces out of those and placing them on the table and exclaiming what a beautiful picture those three pieces make.

I leave it up to you to decide how rationally sane that is!

Blessings.

1 Like
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You are baiting me with stupidity…so, are you the troll that you claim to be looking for?

Perhaps you have a split personality…

Who knows.

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No, it’s a good question and earnestly asked. The answer is important, because:

  • No Real Understanding: Models like Large Language Models (LLMs) calculate which words naturally follow the previous ones; they do not possess actual knowledge or awareness of the real world.
  • Hallucinations: AI can produce confident, polished, but entirely fabricated answers or citations when it guesses an incorrect sequence that sounds plausible.
  • Prioritizing Approval: Training processes often reward models for matching user preferences or sounding helpful, which can cause them to confirm false beliefs rather than push back with objective facts.
  • Utility vs. Truth: Recent research notes that AI agents may bend or misrepresent facts if doing so better satisfies a human’s specific instructions or goals.

The thing we know for an absolute certain fact is that when you run your system, it’s going to tell you what you want to hear. And, it’s quite common for the AI to use complimentary language toward whomever the mastermind in charge is.

What does it call you? Are you on a first-name basis?

If you’re concerned about being baited, you’ll be disappointed to learn you swallowed the bait whole. Hook, line, and sinker, which isn’t easy by any metric.

But I knew you could do it.

You should challenge kv100 to a bench press competition. But, he does the universe, so, on second thought, maybe it isn’t such good advice. I would hate for you to embarrass yourself.

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LOL, you do think very highly of yourself.

Nice try.

I do not use AI for a couple of reasons, first and foremost - as you said - it is programmed to give you what you want, and for that reason it will lie to you because that is what you want to hear.

You should go back to playing with your toys, it appears that that is what you are good at.

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So you’re saying that you are going to “run” each requested passage through all 35 of your “principles” using nothing but your keen mind, your trusty red letter edition, and a dry erase board? That sounds like at least several days for each passage.

Sorry, can’t buy it. Of course, on the other hand, I have seen your definition of “evil”. That little song and dance could not have come from an AI, no matter how much it loves you. Could it? Nawww.

So that’s what we can expect. Either your AI telling us anything you want to hear, or you telling us whatever you can make up in your head. With full embellishments, and several insults thrown in.

I can hardly wait.

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Well, that’s not what I heard, but that’s what you said. I was taking sophomore sociology one time and the prof went “this is like exegesis, which is the art of finishing Jesus’ thoughts for him, except that we do it with Socrates”. Not my own idea, just what Birkenstock Prof Man cloaked it was.

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So you’re saying that you are going to “run” each requested passage through all 35 of your “principles” using nothing but your keen mind, your trusty red letter edition, and a dry erase board? That sounds like at least several days for each passage.

No, that is not what I am saying…again, there are some passages that are so clear that this process is unnecessary. Most passages do not require running them through all 35 principles; what we do is memorize the principles and when one of them are applicable to properly interpret a passage, those are the principles that we apply.

So that’s what we can expect. Either your AI telling us anything you want to hear, or you telling us whatever you can make up in your head. With full embellishments, and several insults thrown in.

What you can expect, is what you give. So, put your AI nonsense back where it came from, and try to learn something…or not, just continue being the…“thing”…you are being.

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Interesting…but no, that is not what eisegesis is.

Blessings.

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The Historical and Cultural principles are so vitally important, that no accurate interpretation can be rendered upon some passages of the Scriptures without them. Taking into consideration the politics, religion, law, and other applicable tenets of the Historical-Cultural analysis, we have some guest statements:

The meaning of a text cannot be interpreted with any degree of certainty without historical-cultural and contextual analysis. [[1]]

Historical considerations must also provide a safeguard for minimizing the human propensity for reading one’s own ideas into the text, for eisegesis rather than exegesis. If the interpreter allows his own historical and cultural circumstances, the issues of his own day, subjective needs, relational goals, or his own philosophical and psychological orientations to determine the force of the Biblical text, he has no control against so modernizing it that the divine intent is lost. [[2]]

[H]istorical knowledge possesses a moral integrity that the modern person is obliged to honor. The morality of historical knowledge demands that the historian form judgments about the past based upon an impartial assessment of evidence, that he or she hold to those judgments in a manner proportioned to the weight of the evidence and that he or she dispute claims about the past that historical evidence does not warrant. Harvey holds, furthermore, that the canons of historical knowledge are so foundational in relevance and so extensive in implication that they set the parameters within which Christian faith and theology must operate. [[3]]

So in seeking to understand the words, thoughts, and intentions of the biblical writers, attention must not only be directed to the revelatory and transcultural features of their message but also to the cultural contexts, specific situations, particular concerns, and distinctive exegetical conventions of their day that influenced and /or were used by them in declaring, explicating, and nuancing that message when addressing their various audiences. [[4]]

So, for example, the Reformers read their modern day struggles into the Scriptures in their dealings with the Catholic church, regarding law and righteousness, instead of taking the historical background of what Paul was dealing with. Paul was not saying that “works” (which is what he called walking in obedience to God, or the law, whichever he was addressing) did not count for anything, like in Rom. 3:20; what he was saying that obedience to the Mosaic law would not justify anyone before God, and the reason was that the old covenant, and everything that came from it - including the 10 Commandments - was now abrogated and done away with.

This took place because they did not go back to the historical and cultural backdrop of what Paul was talking about, and because of that their statements of “works righteousness” is false, because that was not what Paul was talking about.

Just one example of many.

Blessings.

 **\[1\]** Virkler; *Hermeneutics*; pg. 81 (emphasis mine)

 **\[2\]** Scott; *Intertestamental Jewish Literature*; pg. 316  (emphasis mine)

 **\[3\]** *The Believer and the Historian: Theological Interpretation and Historical Investigation*; R. Kendall Soulen; Interpretation – Journal of Bible and Theology Vol. 57, No. 2 (April 2003); pg. 176  (emphasis mine)

 **\[4\]** Longenecker; *Major Tasks*; pg. 47 (emphasis mine)
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I know what you’re saying. Stop reading so much into the Bible with your feet on the desk, punk, and use our algorithm instead of Cortana! Or I just supposed to drop the book and get to work? Wait, do I work for you, or is that a lifetime subscription to “The Lion’s Roar” and a copy of “Chop Wood; Carry Water” I see in your secret Buddhist backshelf?

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The problem with your statement is that in a Bible club focused on Jesus as the King, you are omitting the fact that Herod’s claim to Christ’s title is political as such. Who’s the king? Herod? Jesus? Some people think Jesus is the high priest and his interpreting disciple John has the throne. See? You guys are mostly only in the business of trying to counsel in this life, you’re in the world and you’re taking to people about it. I’m not like that, I focus on heavenly places, the metaphysical great beyond that exists now already, but is invisible to us, “for now we see through a glass darkly, but then we shall know even as we are known.” I’m not paranoid and panicking about the second coming, or an evil world system similar to Atlantis before the flood between now and then, because I know my whole Bible, and I can transubstantiate (that’s an illiterate vulgate Latin word meaning prayer), so I’m chill. That’s why I don’t sweat my finances, don’t race my car in both lanes, and can handle life without drugs, or clunky firearms and tight lipped lacks of communication with cool people such as my self who are in the world, but not only not of it, but not open to freaky paranoid walks of life which can’t talk about anything else. Also, I’m not Catholic, so stop firing on me from the sidelines. You people remind me of the Irish football fans who shot Glenn Hoddle. KMA.

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@BlueDragon

Actually, I appreciate the patronizing offer to explain your personal intrepretation method, but I don’t really need you to explain any of your “principles” or your “phases of analysis”. I probably wouldn’t understand them anyway. Your list sounds very thorough, and highly sophisticated; it is obviously focused on impressing your audience. Good Job, it is impressive, mission accomplished. On its face, most of it seems far beyond my capability, so your explanation would be wasted on me. Graciously, intrepretation of God’s word does not require a college degree.

To my simple mind, your collegiate methods are probably very effective for interpreting Solon, Socrates, or even Shakespeare, but are grossly ineffective for interpreting The Spirit of God. Nowhere in your list do you even allude to Yielding to the work of The Holy Spirit, asking The Holy Spirit for help in prayer, or waiting on The Holy Spirit for illumination. Your description of your method seems academic, intellectually dependent, but has an obvious omission of humble Spiritual submission. Spiritual submission is the one-and-only essential element of Spiritual interpretation, and the one you omitted. Your methods may function to understand ancient authors who are no longer with us, but we have the advantage of relying on The Living Author who resides within us. I surely would not counsel anyone to fail to rely on the indwelling Author for the sake of academic principles of interpretation. The leading of God’s Spirit is the what Jesus promised His disciples, and listening to that leading is what Jesus expected them to rely on, but it is the one element you left out. That, to me, is telling.

Our scriptures are a marvelous gift, and so esoteric that their meaning can (and will) bypass the proud, but open like a flower to the simple, humble, and contrite. Our Scriptures make wise the simple, but leave the head-strong in their foolishness.

Interpret this:

For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written: “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, And bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent.” Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world through wisdom did not know God, it pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe. (1 Corinthians 1:18-21)

And:

".. it has been given to you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given. For whoever has, to him more will be given, and he will have abundance; but whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken away from him. Therefore I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand.

And in them the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled, which says: ‘Hearing you will hear and shall not understand, And seeing you will see and not perceive; For the hearts of this people have grown dull. Their ears are hard of hearing, And their eyes they have closed, Lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears, Lest they should understand with their hearts and turn, So that I should heal them.’

"But blessed are your eyes for they see, and your ears for they hear; for assuredly, I say to you that many prophets and righteous men desired to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it. (Matthew 13:11-17)

Sincerely, thanks, but no thanks.

KP

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Son, after reading this and the whole thread, I believe stricter moderation should be enforced. @Fritzpw_Admin would never have tolerated this.

J.