Journal: Westminster Theological Journal
Volume: WTJ 65:2 (Fall 2003)
Article: Apostolic Hermeneutics And An Evangelical Doctrine Of Scripture: Moving Beyond A Modernist Impasse
Author: Peter E. Enns

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Apostolic Hermeneutics And An Evangelical Doctrine Of Scripture: Moving Beyond A Modernist Impasse

Peter Enns

[Peter Enns is Associate Professor of Old Testament at Westminster Theological Seminary.]

I. Introduction

The purpose of this article is to explore the role that apostolic hermeneutics (i.e., the manner in which Christ and the NT authors used the OT) could have on an evangelical doctrine of Scripture. To put the matter this way is to imply that apostolic hermeneutics has not had the influence it should. As I see it, a cause of this state of affairs is, ironically, the influence of Enlightenment thinking on evangelical theology, specifically assumptions concerning standards of “proper interpretation.” In what follows I hope to approach the matter of apostolic hermeneutics not as a problem to be solved, as is too often the case in evangelical theology, but as a window into the Apostles’ “doctrine of Scripture” (however anachronistic such a concept might be). It is my opinion that the church should engage this phenomenon very directly as it continues to work out its own understanding of Scripture.

In this article I use the word “evangelical” to mean, very broadly, conservative, traditional Christianity as it has been practiced at least in America, particularly as it has been a response to the influence of “modernism” in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The words “modernist,” “modernism,” and “Enlightenment” are restricted in their use to refer to the higher-critical biblical scholarship (largely a- or anti-supernaturalistic) of that same period.1 Despite the fact that evangelicals and modernists are on opposite sides of the divide on many things, it is striking the extent to which they have shared similar assumptions, particularly as they affect biblical interpretation.2 By way of introduction, below are two examples of where such influence can be seen.

WTJ 65:2 (Fall 2003) p. 264

The assumption that an historical account is true only to the extent that it describes “what actually happened”3 mutes the varied witness of Scripture to a number of historical events. This varied witness can be seen in the so-called “synoptic problem” (Chronicles and Samuel/Kings; Gospels). The modernist assumption that varied accounts of one event constitute faulty information (error) in at least one of the accounts provides the impulse to harmonize synoptic portions of Scripture, which has been a common practice in evangelicalism.4 The practice of harmon...