Part One Footnotes follow on from last time. The Hermeneutical Landscape The philosopher of religion Gregory Clark admits that, “[some] sources regularly describe the variety of hermeneutical approaches practiced today as ‘dizzying’.”[22] In closing his article Clark writes: “Hermeneutics as a discipline is as wild and woolly as it has ever been, and its future shape and even its existence are impossible to predict.”[23] Reading the “movers and shakers” in evangelical hermeneutics today is a little foreboding. It might be …
Category: Hermeneutics
The Olivet Discourse has been a battleground for interpreters from the various schools of eschatology for aeons. Even futurist premillennial writers offer different opinions on the passage. Nothing is going to be solved for everyone here, but I do want to call attention to the way that Jesus introduces two themes and later comes back to them again. If we allow that the Lord is referring to these themes by recapitulating them in His discourse then we have a helpful …
This is a re-run of an old article. In many respects there is much ground that is mutually shared by evangelical/fundamentalist theology per se. However, consistent hermeneutics is the environment in which dispensationalism thrives. Outside of that environment it fades into nothing. In this little essay[1] I want to examine some of what is happening in the world of philosophical hermeneutics so that we can better understand the influences that are being seen in evangelical textbooks on the subject. Still more, we shall start to understand …
Part Three Block’s Challenge Recently the Old Testament scholar Daniel Block has vigorously challenged the whole Cosmic Temple thesis.[1] Even if his counter-arguments are somewhat provisional[2], and he retains certain questionable positions on some matters (e.g. the presence of a covenant in Eden[3]; violence beyond Eden[4]; Jesus replacing the Jerusalem temple[5]), I think he has banged more than a couple of nails into the coffin. Allow me to set out several of his major criticisms[6]: The depiction of Eden in …
Part Two Objections to the Cosmic Temple Motif in Scripture In Beale’s book The Temple and the Church’s Mission, both the garden of Eden and the Jerusalem temple are types of the Church, which is confusingly called the literal non-physical temple.[1] Beale’s thesis, which is fed by many ingeniously interpreted though vague allusions – mainly reliant upon reinterpreting OT texts by privileged interpretations of the NT – is that the OT stories of Adam, Abraham, and Israel recapitulate the same …
Part One Firmer Ground Following the biblical narrative it appears that the design and furnishings of the tabernacle/temple have some correspondence with the Paradise which Adam forfeited. This “remembrance” would only increase the sense of what was lost and what the Promised One (Gen. 3:15) would restore. It would act as an encouragement to faith. And the expectation would only be heightened once it was also revealed that the sanctuary was modeled after one in heaven (Exod. 25:9; Heb. 8:1-5).[1] …
“Israel’s temple was a symbolic shadow pointing to the eschatological “greater and more perfect tabernacle” (Heb. 9:11) in which Christ and the church would dwell and would form a part. If so, it would seem to be the wrong approach for Christians to look in hope to the building of another temple in Jerusalem composed of earthly “bricks and mortar” as a fulfillment of the OT temple prophecies.” – G. K. Beale, A New Testament Biblical Theology, 634 The above quotation …
A rerun of an older post Recently, I have (not for the first time) been immersing myself in the works of writers who would disagree very strongly with the views espoused at Telos and by traditional dispensationalists in general. Trawling through these big books, paying attention to each argument and their use of Scripture, and repeatedly coming across assertions that seem to make God guilty of double-talk is, to be brutally honest, a sort of self-imposed torture. So why do …
Image: Tom Vanderwell Here is a piece which originally belonged in some correspondence I had with a covenant theologian. I have added a few things, but I think it makes a decent stand-alone article. Some amillennialists think that the original hearers of Ezekiel couldn’t comprehend a future glorious kingdom where Israel is regenerate, and Messiah reigns in justice and righteousness from Jerusalem. That they couldn’t see a time where priests serve God in a new temple. I think they could …
I have been made aware that a group of New covenant theologians have discussed some my list of forty arguments for not reading the New Testament back into the Old Testament. I intend to write a Response soon. But I thought it worthwhile to repost the original list. I have yet to encounter a serious attempt to refute these Reasons. Introduction It seems to be almost an axiom within contemporary, evangelical Bible interpretation that the New Testament must be allowed …
