Collection › LCMS Convention Workbook (St. Louis, Missouri) › 1973 · 50th Convention › Sheet 477
LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 1973, Sheet 477

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

CONTEMPORARY APPROACHES TO BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION

In interpreting the Bible,
Lutherans remember that
the Spirit has spoken
through men whose words
must be understood in the
light of their historical
context. They remember,
too, that the Spirit has
spoken through men and
that this fact gives the
historical words of men a
new, divine dimension;

it makes them the eter-
nal truth about God's
saving will and actions,

Iv.

The Historical-Grammatical
(Traditional) View

Because Lutherans believe,
teach and confess that the
words of the Holy Scriptures
are from the Holy Spirit

(Ap, IV, 107-108; AC, XXVIII,
49), they therefore hold that
the Bible is qualitatively
different from "human being's
writings" (FC, SD, Summary, 9;
Ap, XXIV, 94-95). They do

not hesitate to call the Bible
the "unalterable" and "infall-
ible" divine truth (Preface,
Book of Concord, pp. 5 and
12).

- Confessional Lutheran theology,
accordingly, declares that

"we base our position on the
Word of God as the eternal
truth" (FC, SD, Summary, 13);
"the Word of God is and should
remain the sole rule and norm
of all doctrine" (FC, SD, Sum-
mary, 9); "the Holy Scripture
remains the only judge, rule,
and norm according to which

as the only touchstone all
doctrines should and must be
understood and judged as good
or evil, right or wrong" (FC,
Ep, Summary, 7); "the pro-
phetic and apostolic writings
of the Old and New Testaments
are the only rule and norm
according to which all doctrines
and teachers alike must be ap-
Praised and judged" (FC, Ep,
Summary, 1; FC, SD, Summary,
3).

445

WHAT IS THE PROPER USE OF THE BIBLE?

The Historical - Critical View
eet ea’ a hraitical View

The Radical Position

When historical reasoning
is applied to the Bible,
the expectation to find a
core of truth underneath
all the layers of histori-
cally conditioned inter-
pretation is forfeited from
the outset. When the last
accretion is peeled off,
there is no core left.
Historical reasoning is
not a more efficient "can-
opener" to get at the same
old content. When this
"can-opener" is used, the
can turns out to be empty
of any eternal truth.

. Obviously, the biblical

literature cannot be

used as a source of truth
concerning things of which
it speaks. It is a source
of information only about
the way its authors thought
about God, man, history,
nature, and other things.

. Translated anthropologically

(i.e., understood as litera-
ture from which we learn
something about man), the
biblical literature is useful
to see how people in an an-
cient and pre-scientific
culture conceived man's place
in the total scheme of things
and understood human exist-
ence.

The Mediating Position

1. The mediating position casts
doubt upon the Gospels as reli-
able and authoritative accounts
of the life and work of Jesus
of Nazareth.

a. The Gospels
interpreted

are regarded and
as historically
conditioned theological docu-
ments which inform us pri-
marily about the early
Christian community's post-
Easter faith and witness.

b. In addition, the Gospels are
regarded and interpreted as
composites of numerous, and
sometimes conflicting, tra-
ditions about Jesus’ life
and doctrine.

2. The intent of the Gospels
was to proclaim what Jesus
meant to the early Chris-
tians to the end that others
would believe in Him. In
carrying out this intent,
the Gospels, according to
the mediating historical-
critical view, may ascribe
works to Jesus that He
never performed, put words
in His mouth that He never
spoke, and freely adapt
for their own purposes
even those accounts which
report things He actually
did do and say. Therefore,
these accounts may have