Collection › LCMS Convention Workbook (St. Louis, Missouri) › 1973 · 50th Convention › Page 442
LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 1973, Page 442

Scan: The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod
Transcription machine transcription, uncorrected

442

(Note: For example, con-
cerning the Third Command-
ment, Luther said: '"There-
fore, according to its lit-
eral outward sense, this
commandment does not con-
cern us Christians" (LC, I,
82). For a discussion of
the specific application of
specific texts to specific
situations, see the Apology's
treatment of Matt. 19:21 in
Ap, XXVII, 45-50).

The interpreter will there-
tore want to understand
(1) What the original situation
was to which the words were
first spoken;

What the words meant in

that particular histori-

cal context;

(3) What their continuing
meaning is for subse-
quent times and circum-

stances.

c. Lutheran theology, there-
fore, gratefully uses all
the information made avail-
able by historical and
archaeological research
relative to the history of
Israel and of all the other
nations whose history touches
Israel's. Lutheran theology
gratefully uses the gains

of New Testament scholarship
which broaden and deepen our
understanding of the apos-
tolic writings.

When Lutherans sav that
Scripture interprets itself,
this is not to be understood
as though nistorical research
has no value for illunining
the meaning of a biblical
text.

Inspired by Ged: Other Principles

while Lutheran students of the
Bible gladly avail themselves
of any light that historical
research can shed on the Bible
as a historical phenomenon,

4.

fe)

his account is distorted by

all sorts of subjective ele-
ments (such as superstition,
religious beliefs, national-
istic bias, or hero worship).

The interpreter’s task becomes
extremely complex. He must
know the author equally as
well as his writing if the
author is to be understood on
his own terms.

The interpreter must ascer-
tain whether the author wrote
within an Eastern or Western
frame of reference; whether
he lived in, sav the eighth
century B.C. or the first
century A.D.3; whether the
strands of tradition he used
as sources for his own liter-
ature represent consistent or
conflicting viewpoints;
whether in selecting his ma-
terial and embodying it in
his own production, he did
not in fact modify it sig-
nificantly to suit his own
bias.

when the interpreter has
sorted out all these things,
he must make a decision as to
the extent that the author's
milieu affected not only

what he said but the way he
said it (that is, both con-
tent and form). His purpose
is to determine not only

what the author basically in-
tended to say, but also to
venture a hypothetical recon-
struction of the probable
course of events on the basis
of a twentieth century under-
standing of history.

Thus, the interpreter who ap-
plies historical reasoning
to the Bible is at the same
time a literary, form, redac-
tion, and content critic--
that is, he makes decisions
about the meaning of the text

entirely on the way he relates

the text to the history from
which it emerged. The text
is not interpreted as though
by some supernatural activity
it represents more than the
result of historically con-
ditioned human reflection and
thought.

d.

CONTEMPORARY APPROACHES TO BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION

ical situation to whicn the
biblical literature is ad-
dressed, but also the his-
torical situation which
produced it and accounts
for what is said and why

it said it that wav.

At this point the radical
position is adopted which
maintains that biblical
literature is so completely
conditioned by the culture
which produced it that
apart from a thorough ac-
quaintance with the cate-
gories, thought patterns,
and literary genres of the
period from which it came,
this literature cannot be
understood at all.

The interpreter assumes

that in the biblical liter-
ature ancient writers were
attempting to express a
theological view of the
world and history and of men
and things in terms derived
from and relative to their
culture. The interpreter
dare not begin to read what
they wrote as though it werea
straightforward statement

of facts to be taken at its
surface meaning. If he
does, he has completely mis-
understood both the meaning
and the purpose of this lit-
erature.

Theological Dimension

1.

The theological dimension
has to do with the "inten-
tion" or purpose of the
biblical literature.