What I Was Taught in Seminary About Interpreting the Bible Was Wrong

And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets,
[Jesus] interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.
– The Gospel According to Luke 24:27

God has already interpreted the Old Testament by raising Christ from the dead.
– Peter Enns, Commentary on Exodus

Let me say from the outset that I loved my seminary career. I was able to study under many godly, learned professors and grow in the way of the Scriptures. Yet, with that said, I think the apostles would have failed both my preaching and hermeneutics (e.g., Bible interpretation) classes had they gone to seminary. Why? Because they used the Bible in a way that contradicts the rules many (most?) evangelical seminaries teach for interpreting the Scripture. What’s the rule? The one which says that the original author and audience determines what a passage says and means. Is it a bad rule? Not at all. Indeed, I think it’s a good corrective against reading whatever you want into a passage (i.e., eisegesis). For example, when studying the book of Isaiah we should seek to discover who Isaiah was and the historical situation in which he and his intended audience found themselves. This is why young seminarians are told to hold to the maxim popularized by scholars such as Gordon Fee and Douglas Stuart in their fantastic book How To Read The Bible For All Its Worth: A text cannot mean what it never meant. In other words, “A [biblical passage] cannot mean what it never could have meant to its author or his or her readers.”[ref]Gordon D. Fee and Douglas K. Stuart, How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth, 3rd ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1993), 74.[/ref]

The only problem with this rule, as I understand it, is that it’s not entirely correct.[ref]I would be happy to acknowledge I may simply misunderstand what Fee and Stuart, among others, are saying. My apologies if true.[/ref] As I’ve grown in understanding biblical theology and the idea that Scripture has a Christological center (e.g., Lk. 24:27, Jn. 5:39, Mt. 5:17), I have come to the conclusion that the “original author/audience” rule falls short hermeneutically. Why? Because to see the apostles use the Old Testament is to see them if not break that rule, at least redefine it. Let me explain by referencing Old Testament scholar Peter Enns’ introduction to Exodus where he introduces a vital, foundational key to hermeneutics for Christians: the resurrected Jesus.

This is where the gospel comes into play. To look at God’s intention is ultimately to look to the end of the story and work backward.We know how the story winds up; not every detail, but the bold contours of the story are clear —we are living in the still, fresh blast of light from the empty tomb. Like the mystery buff who sneaks a peek at the final chapter, we know the conclusion, and that knowledge forms the proper setting within which Christian interpretation of the Old Testament takes place. If I can put this another way, for a Christian it seems that the “meaning”of an Old Testament text cannot simply be equated with what was intended by its human author and what it meant to its original audience. It means more. Ultimately, the question turns to the connection between the meaning of a text in its original setting and the effect the resurrection of Christ has on our understanding of that meaning. (We are getting a bit ahead of ourselves here, so we will come back to this below.)[ref] Peter Enns, Exodus: The NIV Application Commentary, (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2000), 22.[/ref]

There is nothing in Isaiah 49:8 that an ‘objective’ reading would lead one to think of Christ! You can only see Christ there if you are standing at the end of the story, as Paul was and we still are today…This is only one example, but it demonstrates an interpretive principle repeated throughout the New Testament. What we call the Old Testament is rightly understood fully only in light of the resurrection of Christ…My contention is that proper Christian interpretation of the Old Testament cannot and must not proceed without taking seriously into account the interpretive stance of the apostles themselves.[ref] Ibid, 28.[/ref]