The science of Biblical Interpretation (Hermeneutics) began at least about 2500 years ago with Socrates and Aristotle who have influenced it to our day. The eight rules of Biblical Interpretation are found in the writings of the foremost legal and Biblical authorities, both ancient and modern.
They are found in the writings of Irenaeus, master interpreter among the second-century church fathers. They were used by the master expositors of the Middle Ages all the way to Luther and the Reformation theologians who disproved Roman fallacies with them.
These rules were involved in the great doctrinal debates of the theologians from the Council of Nice (324 A.D.) to the Council of Trent (1545-1563). It is impossible to determine the true meaning of a Bible doctrine without them. There is nothing more important in all Biblical learning than to know these rules and rightly apply them to Bible doctrines.
The doctrinal errors of nineteen centuries of church history were violations of these principles. It is also true of all the false doctrines found in Christendom today. Think of any false doctrine you know about and see if it isn’t true.
Cults and others use these rules in the ordinary affairs of life but they will not apply them to the Scriptures. They would overthrow their doctrines if they did.
These rules are used by all law courts in the free world. If you should become involved in a court case about the meaning of a Will, Contract, or Deed, the court would use these rules to determine the meaning of the disputed document. In everyday reading and study, everyone uses these rules at times. You could not make sense of anything you read or write if you did not.
Exact rules are needed for an exact result. You cannot get a sure meaning with an uncertain rule. The Bible student must not only study the Scriptures, he must decide how he will interpret them. Two persons can read the same texts and get different ideas from them because they put different meanings upon the words.
A doctrine is only as sure as the proof upon which it is established, and it cannot be demonstrated as sure without these rules, which are the principles to which all logical inquiry appeals.
Many false doctrines are based on a single word or term. Teachers have taken a Biblical word or term and loaded it with a non-biblical meaning. They then detached the word or term from all that the Bible teaches about it and built their doctrine on it.
But, "The whole Bible is a Context." No one has the right to speak as an authority on a Bible subject unless he knows all that the Bible teaches on that subject. When one applies the rules to all that the Bible teaches about a subject, he stands on proven ground.
Dr. G. Campbell Morgan is widely esteemed as "the greatest Bible expositor of the past century," and he said: "We must be set free from the bondage of popular and traditional views in interpretation." 1 Parables and Metaphors, p 7
Dr. R. A. Torrey worked with Dwight L. Moody and was the first head of Moody Bible Institute in Chicago. He wrote a valuable book on how to study the Bible, and said that if some Bible teachers "were practicing law and should try in any court of justice to interpret laws, as they interpret the Bible, they would be laughed out of court." 1
Solomon asked: "Who knoweth the interpretation of a thing?" (Eccles.8:l). And Peter said that no Scripture "is of any private interpretation" (II Pet. l:20). No one knows the interpretation of Scripture if he has his own "private" (personal) interpretation. For nineteen centuries, interpreters have ignored the rules, forced their private beliefs upon the Scriptures, and claimed to have a revelation from God.
This is true of much doctrinal teaching in the world today. Interpretation is more than knowing a set of rules, but the rules are necessary. The spiritual sense must be derived from the grammatical sense.
1. RULE OF DEFINITION
Any study of Scripture . . . must begin with a study of words. (Protestant Biblical Interpretation, Ramm, Bernard, p. 129, W. A. Wilde Co., Boston, 1956) Define your terms and then keep to the terms defined. (The Structural principles of the Bible, Marsh, F. E., p. 1, Kregel Publications)
In the last analysis, our theology finds its solid foundation only in the grammatical sense of Scripture. The interpreter should . . . conscientiously abide by the plain meaning of the words. (Principles of Biblical Interpretation, Berkhof, pp. 74-75, Baker Book House, 1960)
The Bible writers could not coin new words since they would not be understood, and were therefore forced to use those already in use. The content of meaning in these words is not to be determined by each individual expositor. . . to do so would be a method of interpretation [that is] a most vicious thing. (Studies in the Vocabulary of the Greek New Testament, Wuest, Kenneth, pp. 30-37, Eerdmans Pub. Co., 1945) (The author confines the definitions strictly to their literal or idiomatic force; which, after all, will be found to form the best, and indeed the only safe and solid basis for theological deductions of any kind. (Young’s Analytical Concordance, Prefatory Note)
2. RULE OF USAGE
The whole Bible may be regarded as written for "the Jew first," and its words and idioms ought to be rendered according to Hebrew usage. (Synonyms of the Old Testament) Jesus of Nazareth was a Jew, spoke to and moved among Jews in Palestine.... He spoke first and directly to the Jews, and His words must have been intelligible to them ...It was absolutely necessary to view that Life and Teaching in all its surroundings of place, society, popular life.... This would form not only the frame in which to set the picture of the Christ, but the very background of the picture itself. (The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, Edersheim, Alfred, V. 1, xii, Eerdmans Pub. Co., 1953). . . as in what sense these things were understood by the hearers and lookers on, according to the usual custom and vulgar dialect of the nation. (Bishop Lightfoot, quoted in The Vocabulary of the Greek New Testament, xii, Moulton & Milligan, Eerdmans Pub. Co., 1959)
3. RULE OF CONTEST
Many a passage of Scripture will not be understood at all without the help afforded by the context; for many a sentence derives all its point and force from the connection in which it stands. (Biblical Hermeneutics, Terry, M. S., p. 117. 1896)
[Bible words] must be understood according to the requirements of the context. (Thayer’s Greek English Lexicon of the New Testament, p. 97)
Every word you read must be understood in the light of the words that come before and after it. (How to Make Sense, Flesch, Rudolph, p. 51, Harper & Brothers, 1954) [Bible words] when used out of context. . . can prove almost anything. [Some interpreters] twist them . . . from a natural to a non-natural sense. (Irenaeus, second-century church father, quoted in Inspiration and Interpretation, p. 50, Eerdmans Pub. Co., 1957)
The meaning must be gathered from the context. (Encyclopedia Britannica, Interpretation of Documents, V. 8, p. 912. 1959)
4. RULE OF HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
Even the general reader must be aware that some knowledge of Jewish life and society at the time is requisite for the understanding of the Gospel history. (The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, Edersheim, Alfred, V.1, xiii, Eerdmans Pub.Co., 1953) The moment the student has in his mind what was in the mind of the author or authors of the Biblical books when these were written, he has interpreted the thought of Scripture.... If he adds anything of his own, it is not exegesis. (International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, V. 3, p. 1489. 1952)
Theological interpretation and historical investigation can never be separated from each other.... The strictest historical . . . scrutiny is an indispensable sable discipline to all Biblical theology. (A Theological Word Book of the Bible, 30 scholars, Preface, Macmillan Co., 1958) "I have said enough to show the part which the study of history necessarily plays in the intelligent study of the law as it is today. . .Our only interest in the past is for the light it throws upon the present." (U.S. Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., 1902-1932, quoted in The World of Law, V. 2, p. 630, Simon & Schuster, 1960)
5. RULE OF LOGIC
Interpretation is merely logical reasoning. (Encyclopedia Americana, V. 15, p. 267. 1953) The use of reason in the interpretation of Scripture is everywhere to be assumed. The Bible comes to us in the forms of human language, and appeals to our reason . . . it invites investigation, and . . . it is to be interpreted as we interpret any other volume, by a rigid application of the same laws of language, and the same grammatical analysis. (Biblical Hermeneutics, Terry, M. S., p. 25. 1895)
What is the control we use to weed out false theological speculation? Certainly the control is logic and evidence . . . interpreters who have not had the sharpening experience of logic . . . may have improper notions of implication and evidence. Too frequently such a person uses a basis of appeal that is a notorious violation of the laws of logic and evidence. (Protestant Biblical Interpretation, Ramm, Bernard, pp. 151-153, W. A. Wilde Co., 1956) It is one of the most firmly established principles of law in England and in America that "a law means exactly what it says, and is to be interpreted and enforced exactly as it reads." This is just as good a principle for interpreting the Bible as for interpreting law. (The Importance and Value of Proper Bible Study, Torrey, R. A., pp. 67-70, Moody Press, 1921)
Charles G. Finney, lawyer and theologian, is widely considered the greatest theologian and most successful revivalist since apostolic times. He was often in sharp conflict with the theologians of his day because they violated these rules of interpretation. Finney said he interpreted a Bible passage as he "would have understood the same or like passage in a law book" (Autobiography, pp. 42-43). Finney stressed the need for definition and logic in theology and said the Bible must be understood on "fair principles of interpretation such as would be admitted in a court of justice" (Systematic Theology, Preface, ix).
6. RULE OF PRECENDENT
We must not violate the known usage of a word and invent another for which there is no precedent. (The Greek New Testament for English Readers, Dean Alford, p. 1098, Moody Press)
Also known as the Law of First Mention, which simply refers to the fact that the first mention of an area, a fact or a word, becomes a pattern for subsequent uses of that word or expression or phenomenon.
The professional ability of lawyers in arguing a question of law, and the judges in deciding it, is thus chiefly occupied with a critical study of previous cases, in order to determine whether the previous cases really support some alleged doctrine. (Introduction to the Study of Law, p. 40, Woodruff, E. H., 1898)
The first thing he [the judge] does is to compare the case before him with precedents.... Back of precedents are the basic juridical conceptions which are postulates of judicial reasoning, and farther back are the habits of life, the institutions of society, in which those conceptions had their origin.... Precedents have so covered the ground that they fix the point of departure from which the labor of the judge begins. Almost invariably, his first step is to examine and compare them. It is a process of search, comparison, and little more. (U.S. Supreme Court Justice Benjamin Cardozo, 1932-1938, The Nature of the Judicial Process, quoted in The World of Law, V. 2, p. 671, Simon & Schuster, 1960)
7. RULE OF UNITY
[It is] fundamental to a true interpretation of the Scripture, viz., that the parts of a document, law, or instrument are to be construed with reference to the significance of the whole. (Dean Abbot, Commentary on Matthew, Interpretation, p.31)
Where a transaction is carried out by means of several documents so that together they form part of a single whole, these documents are read together as one.... [They are to be so read] that construction is to be preferred which will render them consistent. (Interpretation of Document, Sir Roland Burrows, p. 49, Butterworth & Co., London, 1946)
8. RULE OF INFERENCE
In the law of evidence, an inference is a fact reasonably implied from another fact. It is a logical consequence. It is a process of reasoning. It derives a conclusion from a given fact or premise. It is the deduction of one proposition from another proposition. It is a conclusion drawn from evidence. An inferential fact or proposition, although not expressly stated, is sufficient to bind. This principle of interpretation is upheld by law courts. (Jesus proved the resurrection of the dead to the unbelieving Sadducees by this rule Matt. 22:31, 32. See Encyclopedia Britannica, V. 6, p. 615 (1952) and Black’s Law Dictionary, p. 436, Fourth Edition, West Pub. Co., 1951.)
A proposition of fact is proved when its truth is established by competent and satisfactory evidence. By “competent evidence” is meant such evidence as the nature of the thing to be proved admits.
By “satisfactory evidence” is meant that amount of proof that ordinarily satisfies an unprejudiced mind beyond reasonable doubt. Scripture facts are therefore proved when they are established by that kind and degree of evidence which would, in the affairs of ordinary life, satisfy the mind and conscience of a common man. When we have this kind and degree of evidence it is unreasonable to require more. (Systematic Theology, Strong, Augustus H., p.142, Judson Press, 1899)
