We had a mini-Bible conference at church this past weekend and Dr. Peter Leithart spoke on the topic of hermeneutics.
Here are some remarks from my notes:
Eisogesis is of the essence of interpretation. A good interpreter knows what outside information is relevant. Interpretation i
s not just re-stating. The text has fixed parameters and yet has to have outside information for interpretation. In the joke tradition .... one has to have information from outside in order to "get it." As with jokes in interpreting Scripture, look outside of the text to "get the point." He told the story of Jesus putting mud on the blind man's eyes and healing him (John 9:1-14) .....looking outside of John 9 to get the fullness of the story.
s not just re-stating. The text has fixed parameters and yet has to have outside information for interpretation. In the joke tradition .... one has to have information from outside in order to "get it." As with jokes in interpreting Scripture, look outside of the text to "get the point." He told the story of Jesus putting mud on the blind man's eyes and healing him (John 9:1-14) .....looking outside of John 9 to get the fullness of the story. The second session of the conference focused on seeing the text as music.....he told the story in a different key...i.e. from the perspective of the blind man, from the perspective of the pharisees, in the keys of trials/judgment, discipleship, exodus, Genesis, and chiasms.
If we don't read the text as joke and the text as music, we run the risk of missing things God is conveying to us.
I am not doing justice to the lectures, but perhap you get a sense of his view of hermeneutics. His next book will be out soon on the topic.
2 comments:
Did he touch upon the degree to which we should let extra-biblical texts aid in our interpretation of Scripture?
Well, most of his examples (maybe all?) were showing how Scripture really interprets and illumines other Scripture...OT/NT comparisons, typological interpretations, such as how the blind man became a type of Jesus, etc. But you could search his hermeneutics posts on his website for more detailed posts on the subject. www.leithart.com.
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