#100 The Four Hermeneutical Challenges
There are four challenges to understanding the Bible according to Introduction to Biblical Interpretation. These challenges are, “distance of time, geographical distance, cultural distance, and distance of language”. The relative importance of each of these issues must be understood within our context where we must “work through the hermeneutical circle waiting to arrive at a disclosure of truth, within which there are always new presuppositions and prejudgments in need of being challenged”. In my opinion, the easiest of these challenges to overcome is geographical distance. Whereas the hardest to overcome is the distance of time.
Geographical distance is the distance in our understanding of the geography used in the Bible and what we experience today. Geographical distance is perhaps the easiest barrier to overcome in understanding the Bible. The authors describe some of the reasons that geography could be an issue. The authors use the phrase “Perhaps less trivial” in conjunction with its own arguments to the relevance of this issue. The authors also use 2 Kings 18:17 (New American Standard Bible) “then the king of Assyria sent Tartan and Rab-saris and Rabshakeh from Lachish to King Hezekiah with a large army to Jerusalem. So they went up and came to Jerusalem. And when they went up, they came and stood by the conduit of the upper pool, which is on the highway of the fuller’s field” to describe the geographical distance. But the fact is that we do not need to understand who the Assyrians are, or where the highway of the fuller’s field is to grasp the importance of this verse; which is that people went to Jerusalem. A secondary argument employed by the authors is that we don’t have a “we lack a mental, visual databank” that would aid in our understanding of the places in the Bible. Yet shows like The Chosen and our imagination seem to disagree with the notion that we can’t visualize the ancient near east. In conclusion geographical distance is easy to cross and is generally of secondary importance.
On the other hand, distance of time is the greatest challenge of Biblical Interpretation. The authors say “one of the greatest challenges (and frustrations) the Bible interpreter will face is distance”. Distance of time is an inhibitor to our understanding of the Bible because of our lack of information about the ancient world. This is the greatest issue in biblical interpretation because it is a combination of all four interpretation issues. The authors cite Hosea as an example of the challenge for interpretation. This example includes geographical distance saying “where were Beth Aven, Assyria, or Ephraim located?”. The Distance of time is what makes geographical distance, cultural distance, and distance of language so challenging.
In summary, of the four challenges to biblical interpretation described by the authors of Introduction to Biblical Interpretation, geographical distance is the easiest to overcome and distance of time is the most challenging.
William W. Klein, Craig L. Blomberg, and Robert L. Hubbard Jr., Introduction to Biblical Interpretation (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2017), 53.
Stanley E. Porter, and Jason C. Robinson. Hermeneutics: An Introduction to Interpretive Theory. William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2011, 85.
William W. Klein, Craig L. Blomberg, and Robert L. Hubbard Jr., Introduction to Biblical Interpretation (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2017), 58.
Ibid., 58.
Ibid., 57.
Ibid., 53.
Ibid., 54.
