Thursday, January 5, 2012

What's Your Hermeneutic

I am wondering what your hermeneutic is for Bible interpretation...And yes I am looking for people to actually respond, even if you are unsure.

Relating the Old Testament to the New Testament has been, from my understanding, a debated issue down through the entire Church era. Here are a couple of options of interpretation...

1. We start with the Old Testament. Whatever is not nullified in the New, we are obligated to still obey.
2. We start with the New Testament. We are obligated to obey all that we read. We then look back to the Old Testament for commands that are consistent with the New. And those commands we find in the Old, that are verified in the New, we obey.
3. We start with Jesus. Jesus interprets the Old Testament for us. The rest of the New Testament is an interpretation of Jesus' teachings.
4. We see no separation between the Old and the New. We simply take the whole thing as one book. Leviticus has equal authority as Romans.
5. We start with Paul, and let him interpret the teachings of Jesus, and the teachings of the Old Testament. Whatever he says, is normative for us to obey.

I know there are names for kinds of hermeneutical interpretation, like "grammatical historical," and "redemptive historical," and "allegorical." But specifically I am looking for the relation between the testaments.

Are there other ways to relate the testaments? What way do you use?

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