E CO -'E A PR . CTICAL APPLICI TI N ICORDIA THE LOGICAl M ONThL P No.1 lib Aspects of Biblical Hermeneutics: Confessional Principles and Practical Applications Papers delivered to a conference of the Council of Presidents and [he seminary faculties of The Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod. CoNCORDIA THEOLO leAL MONTHLY Occasional Papers No.1 Published by Concordia Publishing House Primed jn U. S. A. This paper mailed without extra co't co the roster of pastors and men teachers of The Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod. Not indexed in the CO'lcorditJ Theological Motl/hLy Index. CONTENTS Page An Introduction 1 Some Thoughts on the Theological Presuppositions for a Lutheran Approach [0 the Scriptures 2 f.UffiBERTJ.A.Bou~ Principles of Biblical Interpretation in the Lutheran Confessions 21 RALPH A. BOHLMANN The Introduction of the Historical-Critical Method and Its Relationship to Lutheran Hermeneutics 48 FRED KRAMER Lutheran Hermeneutics and Hermeneutics Today 78 JOHN WARWICK MONTGOMERY An Introduction his supplement to the CONCORDIA THEOLOGICAL MONTHLY contains four essays Tdelivered to the Council of Presidents and the joint theological faculties of The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod meeting in St.Louis Nov. 29-30, 1965. At the suggestion pf this group the essays are being mailed to the clergy and called male teachers of the Synod. The topics were assigned to the essayists by the program committee and were de­ signed to dovetail. This is particularly true of the papers by Bouman and Bohlmann, which should be read and studied as a unit. The papers stimulated considerable discussion when they were first presented, although none of the participants in the conference feel that there was enough time to discuss· them adequately. They have undergone no substantive editing. Careful study of these papers will make a decided contribution toward resolving some of the theological arguments which bother us. Many of us who heard them originally feel that we want to read them a second and a third time before we reach a final decision concerning some of the opinions stated in the papers. The four essayists were in agreement that the Holy Scriptures are the final norm for Lutheran theology, and that a Lutheran theologian, by definition, bows cheerfully to this norm. There were two questions put in sharp form by each essayist: What is the nature of Scripture? How does one arrive at a sure grasp of its meaning? Regardless of the form each question may take (and the questions are posed by theologians in a bewildering variety of forms), the questions themselves finally are reduced to these bedrock pastoral concerns. The answer to these questions leads one directly to the heart of the Christian faith, salvation through faith in the incarnate Son of God. Or does faith in the incarnate Son of God lead directly to the answer to these two questions? HERBERT T. MAYER Some Thoughts on the Theological Presuppositions for a Lutheran Approach to the Scriptures HERBERT J. A. BOUMAN PROLEGOMENA issues about God and the Word concern­ ing Him, about God in communication t ~s possible to speak of a presupposi­ I tlOnless approach to the Bible. We with man. Our concern is lifted out of the could imagine some pagan or Muslim from realm of the secular disciplines and con­ some remote corner of the globe coming centrates on an approach to the Scriptures into a bookstore and there discovering a by men whose life has been formed, in­ book he had never heard of before, called formed, and transformed by God, men Bible, or Scripture, or whatever the trans­ whose thoughts have been taken captive lation into his native tongue named it. to the obedience of Christ, whose episte­ With respect to this book he could be per­ mology and methodology are controlled by fectly neutral, at the beginning at least, faith and the illumination of the Spirit of because he was totally ignorant of its con­ God, who once spake by the prophets and tent or its message. led the apostles into all truth and glorified Christ in them and now speaks again Our title suggests that such a hypotheti­ through the prophetic and apostolic Scrip­ cal case is not under consideration. It tures to perform the same function for the frankly admits that there are certain pre­ interpreter and the hearer. suppositions that appear to be self-evident Another word in our theme is "Lu­ to those who maintain them and may be theran." In the history of the church there accepted as a matter of course. Not all pre­ has been a variety of approaches to the suppositions are valid, of course. Though Bible with great divergence in the results. they may seem so to the persons holding These results have usually reflected certain them, they are far from self-evident to philosophic or theological preconceptions others. There may be and often is a high about God and His nature, His attitudes degree of subjectivity in presuppositions. and acts, His abilities or desires to estab­ Our theme suggests, furthermore, that lish communication and communion with we are not about to speak of presupposi­ man. A one-sided stress on the transcen­ tions in general, such as may be common dence of God tended to depersonalize God to all areas of human thought and inquiry, and make Him distant, cold, unapproach­ but theological presuppositions. This raises able, serenely indifferent to and unaffected by mundane affairs. Such a view of God Her~ert J. A. Bouman is professor of syste­ could easily reduce the question of an ap­ matt.c theol~gy at Concordia Seminary, Saint proach to Him or His Word to an acutely Louts, and ts a member of the Commission on Theology and Church Relations of The academic and irretrievably irrelevant mat­ Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod. ter. Conversely, a preconception of God 2 LUTHERAN APPROACH TO THE SCRIPTURES 3 as already present within the creature This state of affairs certainly compli­ would tend to obviate the necessity of any cates the problem before us. If the ap­ further concern with how one ought to proach to Scripture on the part of men approach that which we call God's Word within the church is conditioned by what to man. The subjective reflection of the is in Scripture, which is a constant (apart man in whom God is alleged to be imma­ from relatively unimportant variations in nent becomes the criterion of theology. If the extent of the canon), then we may ask the sovereign God needs no vehicle to ride why the results should be so much at vari­ into men's hearts and lives, he probably ance. Why should Origen and Tertullian, disdains to use one, and a concern about or Arius and Marcellus, or Marcion and the vehicle can again become academic Irenaeus, or Nestorius and Cyril of Alex­ and irrelevant. Or if He has simply handed andria, or Theodore of Mopsuestia and down a comprehensive collection of time­ Eutyches, or Pelagius and Augustine, or less laws or ordinances all on the same Aquinas and Occam, or Luther and Eras­ level, I need but take this catalog, start on mus and Zwingli, or Wesley and Calvin, page 1, and work my way through to the or Pieper and Fosdick arrive at such mas­ last page, making sure only that I have all sively discordant conclusions? The answer the vocables, the grammar, and the syntax lies, of course, largely in the fact that the straight. same Scriptures were read and interpreted Again, if I approach the Bible with cer­ in the context of specific theological and tain preconceptions about myself and my anthropological perspectives which in fellowmen, with an optimistic view of hu­ many instances allowed themselves to be man powers and capabilities unimpaired or influenced and even controlled by certain not critically impaired, God's address to extra-Biblical philosophical, cosmological, man will take on a character and function anthropological, nomistic, etc., assumptions commensurate with such an anthropology that resulted in major or minor distortions (more about this later). of the Biblical message. Another point to be considered: Any Some of this distortion was occasioned approach to Scripture, certainly within and abetted by a principal of selection of Christendom, already represents a return, Biblical materials which were first of all a response to its message, whether that interpreted in the light of a certain Ten­ content has been transmitted by means of denz, preconceived and imported into the the church's creedal summaries or oral text, and then· these materials in turn be­ kerygma or through hearing or reading its came the criterion for the understanding very words. In the circle of the church's and application of the rest of Scripture. use of Scripture it is always both a Heraus­ The very vocabulary of Scripture, including kommen and a Hinzukommen. Hence such key words as spirit, flesh, righteous­ there exists a reciprocal, even cyclical, rela­ ness, sin, knowledge, grace,faith, merit, tionship, a circle perfectly natural and reward, love, Law, Gospel, etc., took on proper for those within the circle but a distinctive coloring in accordance with stultifying nonsense to the unregenerate the respective T endenz in the service of logician. which they were employed. 4 LUTHERAN APPROACH TO THE SCRIPTURES It is well known that Luther himself, as friendly Roman Catholic critics are some­ a child of his time and an heir of previous times at pains to point out. Much of the ages or exegetical principle and method, material in the Lutheran Symbols, particu­ was long held captive to this legacy. His larly in the Apology but also in the Augs­ earlier works teem with instances of rather burg Confession, the Smalcald Articles, the fanciful allegorical exegesis, and traces per­ Tractate, and the Formula of Concord, is sist even in his mature writings.