Key Hermeneutical Questions for African Evangelicals Today
Keywords:
Evangelical hermeneutics, Biblical interpretation, African theological education, Authorial intent / Communicative intention, Role of the Holy Spirit (Inspiration-illumination), Multiple meanings / PolysemyAbstract
Responding to a perceived gap between ‘academic’ and ‘spiritual’ study of the Bible, this article explores assumptions behind hermeneutical approaches taught in evangelical African theological colleges. Using an author-text-reader model of communication, four foundational and programmatic questions forevangelical African hermeneutics are discussed: (1) Where is biblical meaning created? (2) What is the Holy Spirit’s role in biblical interpretation? (3) Can a passage of Scripture have more than one meaning? (4) If we allow the possibility of multiple meanings, how do we choose among differing interpretations? The article discusses differences between ‘inspiration-illumination’ and ‘two-point inspiration’ hermeneutical paradigms and concludes that historical author meaning serves as a constraint on, but allows for a variety of, contemporary reader meanings within God’s ‘communicativeintention.’ A set of criteria for evaluating and validating differing interpretations of Scripture is suggested.
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