Importance of Hermeneutics

Forthcoming in the REVIVE

Interpretation is the act of uncovering the meaning of a text. The Bible was written by various authors to different audiences over the stretch of some 1500 years, over 2000 years ago. Several historical and linguistic changes have occurred since then making it difficult for readers to correctly understand the actual intent of the author who wrote the particular passage in the Bible. Therefore, biblical interpretation today becomes even more important in order to grasp what God wants us to understand.

Of course, the doctrine of Illumination teaches us that it is impossible to understand supernatural truths without the light of the Holy Spirit. 1Corinthians 2:12-14 teaches us that spiritual things cannot be comprehended by human wit and reasoning; they can only be received through the Spirit of God. However, at the same time, learning and faith are both essential in understanding the meaning of Scriptures (2Pet. 3:16).

Translation, Interpretation, and Bible Versions

Scholars of Hermeneutics (Science of Interpretation) now understand that translation is itself an act of interpretation; for, in the act of translation, the translator first attempts to understand the meaning of the text which he then translates into a language (or version) that is understandable to others. In modern times, therefore, several versions have come up based on their various approaches to translation. Some of these versions like the KJV are more literal while others like the NIV are not word-to-word translations but such that attempt to translate the understood meaning of the text.

Compare the following passage in the NKJV and the NIV, for instance:

For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. (Rom 8:5 NKJ)

Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. (Rom 8:5 NIV)

In the original Greek, the word used for flesh is sarx; however, the NIV translators saw the term as meaning “sinful nature”, based on their doctrinal understanding of Scriptures and chose to use the word “sinful nature” instead of “flesh” here. More variations may be found when comparing with other versions. Of course, not all interpreters would agree to translating sarx as “sinful nature”, since it literally means “flesh”.

Certainly, not everyone (including most Christian ministers today) is well-versed with Biblical Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek; they make use of translations to understand Scripture. To a great extent, the translations are reliable; however, in some cases they are not; and, especially with regard to doubtful passages, reliance on translations alone can lead to badly developed doctrines or interpretations. Take for instance the issue of the following passage:

Jesus saith unto her, Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father: but go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God. (Joh 20:17 KJV)

Seeing that, later on, Jesus permits His disciple to touch Him (John 20:27), some have interpreted the passage above to mean that perhaps Jesus had ascended to the Father and come back in between His appearance to Mary and His appearance to His disciples. However, later translators saw the importance of bringing out the true sense of the meaning of the word haptomai, translated in the KJV as “touch”. See the versions below:

Jesus said to her, "Do not cling to Me, for I have not yet ascended to My Father; (Joh 20:17 NKJ)

Jesus said to her, "Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. (Joh 20:17 NRS)

These later versions try to more graphically illustrate the scene that the verb haptomai seems to paint. From these versions, it seems that Mary was already clinging on to Jesus, perhaps not willing to lose Him again, and Jesus was telling her to stop holding on to Him, because He was not gone yet and was still to be with them for some time. In fact, He wouldn’t ascend till He had met the disciples and had commissioned them.

Sometimes, manuscript variations can also affect interpretation. Let’s take for instance the case of Revelation 5:9 in which the 4 Living Creatures and the 24 Elders sing this song:

"You are worthy to take the scroll,

And to open its seals;

For You were slain,

And have redeemed us to God by Your blood

Out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation,

And have made us kings and priests to our God;

And we shall reign on the earth." (Rev 5:9-10 NKJ, emphatics mine)

Because the song uses personal pronouns such as “us” and “we”, previous commentators identified the singers as believers bought by the blood of Jesus, i.e. as the Church in heaven. However, other manuscripts and their dependent translations challenge this interpretation.

"You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slaughtered and by your blood you ransomed for God saints from every tribe and language and people and nation; you have made them to be a kingdom and priests serving our God, and they will reign on earth." (Rev 5:9-10 NRS, emphatics mine)

Of course, not everyone again is expected to be a pundit of the languages and of textual criticism; however, everyone can certainly be careful to understand that biblical interpretation is not just a matter of arbitrary whim and personal sense. Also, in modern times, we have several resources for proper Bible study and for proper historical-grammatical interpretation at our finger tips. Free softwares such as E-Sword and TheWord for desktops and MySword for mobile phones and tablets bring all such resources right at our finger tips.

Thus, proper biblical interpretation is necessary not only for translation of Scriptures but also in order to rightly understand and to know the true message of Scriptures.

Biblical Interpretation as the Watchdog against Heresies

Right biblical interpretation follows proper principles and methods of interpretation or hermeneutics (dealt with in other articles in this issue). Without the tools of proper interpretation one can become the victim of heretical interpretation. Take for instance this passage from the New World Translation Bible of the Jehovah Witnesses:

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was a god.” (John 1:1, NWT)

Notice the phrase “the Word was a god” which is a twisted translation of the Greek kai theos en ho logos, which should literally translate as “and God was the Word”, but by virtue of the context is rendered as “and the Word was God”. However, the literal translation challenges the Jehovah Witness doctrine that doesn’t accept the doctrine of Trinity; therefore, it was twisted into “the Word was a god” to match their doctrine. That is one example of the many ways in which Scriptures are twisted; such twisting must be exposed by the use of proper biblical interpretation.

Most general heretical teachings do not even require one to look into the Greek and Hebrew in order expose them. Proper application of the right hermeneutical principles helps to uncover the author’s meaning. Of course, also, it is possible that people expert in Greek and Hebrew may not be able to comprehend spiritual truths that are easily comprehended by children of God led by the Spirit of God. However, that is not an excuse for undermining the importance of rigorous biblical exegesis and interpretation. As stated earlier, without such rigorous interpretation, not even the translations could be possible.

Biblical Interpretation for Spiritual Edification

Understanding, assimilating, and obeying the Scriptures is crucial to one’s spiritual development. Hebrews 5:11 talks about things that are hard even to explain, because they require development of spiritual faculties on the part of the listener. For instance, it will be hard to explain trigonometry to someone who hasn’t yet mastered the numbers. Similarly, the writer of Hebrews tells us that there are some who still can only feed on milk and haven’t exercised their faculties enough to be able to assimilate the meat of God’s word.

For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the first principles of the oracles of God; and you have come to need milk and not solid food. For everyone who partakes only of milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, for he is a babe. But solid food belongs to those who are of full age, that is, those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil. (Heb 5:12-14 NKJ)

Those who are of full age (mature) are those who not only can discern and comprehend spiritual truths but also are able to understand and assimilate them when they are explained by others. But, those who aren’t mature cannot make sense of teaching that constitutes solid spiritual food.

However, we speak wisdom among those who are mature, yet not the wisdom of this age, nor of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. (1Cor. 2:6 NKJ)

Spiritual understanding and edification doesn’t just come from academic proficiency; for if it was so the rulers of this age, who knew the original languages and the principles of interpretation “would not have crucified the Lord of glory” (1Cor.2:8). Spiritual understanding comes from the Spirit (1Cor.2:10-16). The Bible talks of spiritual blindness that prevents people from seeing what God reveals in His Word (2Cor.3:14,15). This blindness can only be removed when one turns in repentance and faith towards God (2Cor.3:16; 4:3,4).

Obviously, then, Biblical interpretation is not, in this sense, similar to interpretation of any other book in the world; because the Bible is given for our spiritual edification and not just for historical information or intellectual stimulation. The Austrian philosopher of language, Ludwig Wittgenstein talked about language games. Each game is a world of its own with its own rules that may not apply to some other game. Similarly, we can say that biblical interpretation has its own set of rules, and one of the requirements for proper biblical interpretation is that the interpreter is spiritual, because “the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned” (1Cor. 2:14 NKJ). Thus, biblical interpretation is by itself a distinct discipline and its goal is not merely to understand the human author’s intent but to understand the mind of the Holy Spirit who moved holy men to write the Scriptures.

“no prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation, for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.” (2Pe 1:20-21 NKJ)

Therefore, biblical interpretation is crucial for the understanding of Scriptures. It helps one to enter the “setting in life” of the writer and his audience, to progressively understand the meaning of Scriptural terms, to exactly comprehend the purport of God’s word, and to find direction and strength for living a godly life of faith in this world. Biblical interpretation helps to translate God’s word into a language that the contemporary youth is familiar with. It is, therefore, an essential duty of a Christian minister. It also helps to expose heresies and assist God’s servant in “rightly dividing the word of truth” (2Tim.2:15).

God in Graphology: Considerations in Gematria, Theology of the Alphabet (Hebrew, Chinese), and Philosophy of the Word

Let us call the method of trying to decode the writing system in order to seek proofs for faith as "Graphological Theology".

Sacred Gematria

The works of Ivan Panin that discover numeric patterns in the Bible are examples of Textual Gematria. Check the following excerpt from his letter to the New York Sun:

The first 17 verses of the New Testament contain the genealogy of the Christ. It consists of two main parts: Verses 1-11 cover the period from Abraham, the father of the chosen people, to the Captivity, when they ceased as an independent people. Verses 12-17 cover the period from the Captivity to the promised Deliverer, the Christ.

Let us examine the first part of this genealogy. Its vocabulary has 49 words, or 7 x 7. This number is itself seven (Feature 1) sevens (Feature 2), and the sum of its factors is 2 sevens (Feature 3). Of these 49 words 28, or 4 sevens, begin with a vowel; and 21, or 3 sevens, begin with a consonant (Feature 4).

Again: these 49 words of the vocabulary have 266 letters, or 7 x 2 x 19; this number is itself 38 sevens (Feature 5), and the sum of its factors is 28, or 4 sevens (Feature 6), while the sum of its figures is 14, or 2 sevens (Feature 7). Of these 266 letters, moreover, 140, or 20 sevens, are vowels, and 126, or 18 sevens, are consonants (Feature 8).

That is to say: Just as the number of words in the vocabulary is a multiple of seven, so is the number of its letters a multiple of seven; just as the sum of the factors of the number of the words is a multiple of seven, so is the sum of the factors of the number of their letters a multiple of seven. And just as the number of words is divided between vowel words and consonant words by sevens, so is their number of letters divided between vowels and consonants by sevens. ...Read More

There has certainly been criticism that Panin was creating the patterns arbitrarily and, if we look for, we can find numerical patterns anywhere (See Ivan Panin and the Gospel of Mark). However, this doesn't diminish the fact that Gematria has been used as an apologetical tool in graphological theology.

Theology of the Alphabet

Ha Dabar

Jewish mystics have maintained that God created the universe from the 22 consonants of the Hebrew Aleph-Bet, called the otiyod yesod, the foundational letters [Hebrew4Christians]. A theology of the alphabet would contend for the sacredness of the alphabet's origin in God. An even more intense form of this would lead to the mysticism of the alphabet. Check the following comment on Genesis 1:

After Bere’shiyt bara ’Elohiym there is a fourth untranslatable word. That fourth word is actually two Hebrew letters: the Aleph and the Tav. The aleph-tav (את) does serve a grammatical purpose in that it points to the direct object of the sentence. These two letters do not actually form a word, but rather they express an understanding. The aleph (א) is the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet, and the tav (ת) is the last letter of the alphabet. The placement of these two very significant letters at strategic locations within many sentences of the Hebrew Scriptures express a total completeness. It is equivalent to saying "from alpha to omega, from a to z, from first to last, from beginning to end." So, from the Hebraic point of view, they see that "In the beginning ’Elohiym created the aleph-tav. In other words, they believe that the very first thing ’Elohiym created was the Hebrew alphabet, which is known through ancient writings also as the aleph-tav. They recognize that He created the letters by which all life and all physical things spring forth from. They are divinely ordained building blocks of life. [Brad Scott, "Mysteries and Truths Hidden Within the AlephBeth"]

However, the Bible doesn't seem to support the prioritizing of any one particular language as such. The Bible was also written in Aramaic and Greek; and Jesus, in the New Testament, actually declares Himself to be the Αlpha (A) and the Omega (Ω), the beginning and the end (Rev.1:8,11; 21:6; 22:13). Alpha is the first and Omega the last letter of the Greek Alphabet.

Genesis in the Chinese Characters

But, this may not be limited to just Hebrew or Arabic. Studies in the Chinese characters have been used as proofs for the reliability of the Bible by Chinese scholars. Check the following two excerpts from C.H. Kang's The Discovery of Genesis (1979):

Again, the validity of such interpretations has been debated. One counter-argument has been that such interpretations are very literalist and do not do justice to the intent of the character composition. It has been argued that though the characters were ultimately derived from pictograms, when they became used for writing, they ceased to be pictographic, and that most of the Chinese characters have both phonetic (establishing sound) and signific (hinting at a semantic category). For instance, "the character 媽, used to mean 'mother', is composed of the elements 女 'woman' and 馬 'horse'. While the component meaning 'woman' hints that the character has something to do with women, the component meaning 'horse' in fact establishes pronunciation - both the 'mother' and 'horse' morphemes are pronounced /ma/, albeit with different tones." [Wiki: Chinese Characters and the Bible]. But, the fact that the contextual apologists were looking at the ultimate derivative beyond the surface usage, is certainly not discounted.

Philosophy of the Word

The All-Encompassing Syllable

Verse 1-2 of the Taittiriya Upanisad's fourth chapter describes the Sacred Syllable Om as "preeminent in the Vedas, that pervades all words, and that emerged from the immortal Vedas as their quintessence..." [Trans. Swami Gambhirananda, Advaita Ashrama]. The Mandukya Upanisad exposes Om as the the Beginning, Middle, and End of all sound; it encompasses all the sounds beginning with the opening of the mouth with the sound (Aa), then closing to middle with U, and closing down with Ma. OM=Aa+U+Ma. The Upanisads encourage the recital of Om before every incantation of prayer (Taittiriya 1.8.1). Check the poetic motif of Om in this beautiful prayer of the Brhadaranyaka Upanisad 1.3.28:

oṁ asato mā sad gamaya (Om Lead me from Truthlessness to Truth)
tamaso mā jyotir gamaya (Lead me from Darkness to Light)
mṛtyor mā amṛtaṁ gamaya (Lead me from Death to Immortality)
oṁ śāntiḥ śāntiḥ śāntiḥ (Om Peace, Peace, Peace!)

The Hindus have long looked at Om as the Beginning and the End of all reality. It has become the religious symbol of Hinduism. Practical Hindu mysticism values incantation and utterance of Om as encompassing all things including all quarters of space and time.

Interestingly, the Indian concept of Om seems to be a bit parallel to that of the Greek AΩ (See above). However, the philosophical frameworks of meaning in which the terms are used compel difference. Still, the concept of Beginning-Middle-End looks inviting to compare it with the phrase, "who is and who was and who is to come". Also, the idea of the All-Encompassing cannot ignore the Person in whom all things, both in heaven and on earth, will be gathered together (Eph.1:10). Yet, again the Biblical view is Trinitarian and non-pantheistic, and the human soul is a creature of God.

He gives to all life, breath, and all things. (Act 17:25)
in Him we live and move and have our being, (Act 17:28)

The All-Governing Word

Heraclitus taught that the universe was governed by the Logos, which means "word" but may also be interpreted as "law" or "reason". According to Heraclitus,

• The Logos was fire-like.
• The Logos was a divine force.
• The Logos produces the order and pattern discernible in the flux of nature.
• This divine force is similar to human reason. [Logos, Microsoft Encyclopedia Encarta, See Hamartiology Notes]

Church Father Justin Martyr (c.100-c.165), elaborately made use of the Logos theology as an apologetic approach to Greek philosophy and religion. In Christian Theology, Logos is the Person of Christ. This helped Justin to accept philosophers such as Plato as speaking according according to the Word. According to Justin,

Even before the coming of Christ, the logos was manifested partially in such Greek philosophers as Socrates and Heraclitus, and in such Hebrews as Abraham, Ananias, Azarias, Misael, and Elijah (1st Apology). Plato’s truth was dependent on Moses (chs.59-60).
o The seed of God’s logos (logos spermatikos) was disseminated to all men in their God-given capacity to respond to truth. “Whatever things were rightly said among all men are the property of us Christians” (2Apol. 13:4)
o There were Christians before Christ, such as Socrates and Heraclitus (1Apol. 46:3)
o All Theophanies in OT were Christophanies “For the ineffable Father and Lord of all neither comes to any place… but remains in His own place…” [Dial.127:2, See Justin Martyr]

Similar line of thinking exists in Sikh theology, in which the Sabad, i.e. the Word, is considered to be the Guru (i.e. the Teacher).

Conclusion

Is Graphological Theology biblically justifiable? With regard to Theology of the Text, the Bible does speak about every scripture being inspired and that every jot and tittle having significance in the Bible (2Tim.3:15; Matt.5:18). However, there are dangers in over emphasizing gematriac patterns and disregarding the messsage of the Spirit for the composition of the word. God gives us the tree in order to eat of its fruit; not to count its leaves and spend time analysing its patterns. However, this doesn't mean that the patterns do not exist; for everything that is God-created is God-sealed.

The same also holds for studies in Chinese characters. It is certainly not very surprising to find bridges and connections to the Bible in local folk stories, rituals, and even graphology. Don Richardson has recorded amazing missionary findings in various cultures all over the world in his very important book Eternity in their Hearts. However, one must be careful to not assume a bridge where a bridge doesn't exist, or else he may have to walk over thin air. The Chinese findings cannot be discounted as accidental; nor does an argument of phonetics rule away the question of finding the sources of the original characters. God is not just the God of the Hebrews or of the Mayans; He has been historically present among us all from the beginning. And, His trails are visible among us. We only need to find them.

But, what about the inclusion of the extra-biblical themes in the study of Scriptures. Again, one must be careful not to misapply anything to where it doesn't belong. We must remember that the Bible only tells us this about the Scriptures:

All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work. (2Ti 3:16-17 NKJ)

The Song Is Independent Of The Songwriter

There have been some who have argued that the psalms of David must not be preached from because of the moral failures of David. The same is lamented of Solomon. However, we know that the Spirit's inspiration overrules the time-bound fluctuations of human character. Not that the text is detached from the author; but that changes in the author do not invalidate the text that has been written.

1. Absolutes declared in the text are not invalidated by any lack of moral conformity and consistency in the author/writer.
2. The authenticity of spirit in the composition of text at a particular time is not invalidated by the lack of authenticity in the author at some other time.
3. The text becomes free of the author at its moment of publication. The author becomes accountable to the text; not vice versa.
4. The text influences how one interprets the text; similarly, how one interprets determines what one gets from the text.

Thus, the song is independent of the songwriter as far as truth and time is concerned. However, the text within context is also not separate from the story of the author. But, after its creation, the text's story-line changes from that of the author.

Fusion of Horizons

What rare jewel these eyes have met,
Ten spaces far from me!
Yet, finally have two horizons met,
Traversing both land and sea.