Journal: Journal of Dispensational Theology
Volume: JODT 29:79 (Autumn 2025)
Article: Presuppositionalism, Linguistics, And Grammatico-Historical Interpretation Of Scripture By Evangelicals
Author: Russell T. Booth

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Presuppositionalism, Linguistics, And Grammatico-Historical Interpretation Of Scripture By Evangelicals1

Russell T. Booth

* Russell T. Booth, B.Th., M.A., M.A., D.Min., professor of research and writing as well as Greek and Hebrew, Birmingham Theological Seminary Prison Initiative; Bible teacher, UnBound216, Brent, Alabama

For millennia various strategies have been suggested for analyzing and understanding human language. For Christians who believe God to have revealed himself through the written words of the Bible (2 Tim 3:16-17)2, this is especially important. The world of secular scholarship has many things to say regarding human language. Failure to consider this issue properly could result in missing advances applicable to exegesis on the one hand, or drifitng from biblical orthodoxy on the other. Milton S. Terry (1840-1940) is considered one of the founders of the modern grammatico-historical method of Bible interpretation employed by many theological conservatives in the Anglo-American tradition.3 At least one influential Christian scholar who was opposed to use of linguistic science in biblical interpretation promoted Terry as the paragon of grammatico-

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historical methodology.4 However, Terry’s own development of grammatico-historical interpretation adopted the advances in language study of his day that originated from the secular world, which raises the question of the legitimacy of biblical scholarship employing elements from secular thinking in grammatico-historical exegesis of Scripture. In some sense, what has occurred in the past cannot be changed as many contemporary Greek grammars are undergirded, or at least influenced by, linguistic science.5 Most importantly, one can legitimately employ the advances of linguistics to biblical exegesis conducted via the grammatico-historical hermeneutic as long as it is done within clearly defined primary commitments. The claim also gives rise to a delimitation of the study: no particular school of linguistics is here advanced.6 The only thing proposed is the legitimacy of linguistics within grammatico-historical exegesis in principle. The study’s second delimitation narrows the scope of discussion to New Testament

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Greek.7 The a...