The Narrow Path Ministries

From this link: Bernard Muller's Theological Method

I found this a few years ago Googling something.
'Thought it was rilly, rilly good stuff!
(and that y'all might enjoy it too)....

Excerpt:

More about my methodology:
a) Stay always within the historical, social, cultural & religious (ancient) contexts, when studying each event & writing.
b) Acknowledge that people in the 1st/2nd century (most of them illiterate) had some common sense (& religious aspirations) and were living mostly in a secular, "low-tech" (& unscholarly!) world; they thought in real time (their own day to day present).
c) Consider the (early) Christian texts as written by "flesh & blood"persons (and not necessarily scholars!) likely to have human motives (sometimes very obvious), and as addressed to contemporaries; then research the circumstances surrounding their compositions.
d) Have an all-encompassing view; everything of any pertinence has to be investigated, from all primary sources available, more so the closest (in time) to the facts.
e) Determine with accuracy (and great efforts!) the sequence of events, timing and the dating of writings (that's lacking in many scholarly works), because that provides another dimension, the most crucial one; many (preceding & following) points are considerably affected by the dating & sequencing.
f) Do not charge with some theory/concept (yours or borrowed) because it suits you (unfortunately, agenda-driven works are prevalent nowadays).
g) Sort out the evidence and check it in depth (accuracy, validity, context, correct translation, etc., for each bits), by way of critical analysis; justify any rejection with good reasons, preferably many of them.
h) Do not ignore "down to earth", obvious, mundane or trivial details (usually considered unworthy of scholarly interest); do not overlook contradictions and oddities (as you would for the work of a subordinate, as a detective would for a suspect, as a legal officer would for an eyewitness!); pay attention to "against the grain" and embarrassing bits (they might be telling!).
i) Follow the evidence; stay close to it; allow it to "discipline" & direct you; avoid free intellectual extrapolations & speculations (we have enough of those!).
j) Practice reality checks along the way; avoid absurdities.
k) Stay on the right track, on solid ground; do not hesitate to turn back when a trail is disappearing; explore all options, but remember, only one can be correct (& not necessarily the first one which pops out from the top of your head!).
l) Accept what you discover, rather than decide first what to find & reject.
m) Be scrupulous; "fudging" & "ignoring" NOT allowed (why should I fool myself & my readers? And this website will not advance my career or make money for me!).
n) Reject ill-substantiated assumptions, even if they are widely "swallowed" (beware of "studies" which accept them, either unannounced ("transparent") or with a short introduction!).
o) Look somewhere else if you need long discussions to justify your position.
p) Provide (concisely & accurately) the whole evidence & argumentation for each step (to keep you honest and prevent unproven claims to creep in); each piece of the puzzle must stand on its own.
q) Go back over all the preceding points because later findings are bound to have implications on previous understandings (and vice versa. I never said it was an "auto-pilot" one-way process. Beware of simplistic methodologies!); examine back everything, including the options you chose along the way (everything has to fit, but keep observing all the points!). Do it over & over, again & again ...

In Christ: Merry Christmas,
Rick

thanks for posting this.

i have a hard time reconciling some of these points w/ how i understand "inspiration", particularly these:

a) Stay always within the historical, social, cultural & religious (ancient) contexts, when studying each event & writing.
b) Acknowledge that people in the 1st/2nd century (most of them illiterate) had some common sense (& religious aspirations) and were living mostly in a secular, "low-tech" (& unscholarly!) world; they thought in real time (their own day to day present).
c) Consider the (early) Christian texts as written by "flesh & blood"persons (and not necessarily scholars!) likely to have human motives (sometimes very obvious), and as addressed to contemporaries; then research the circumstances surrounding their compositions.

to me, these considerations seem irrelevant if the writers were actually inspired by God what to write. i could see these points applying to normal correspondence or uninspired writings, but i am not clear how they apply to "inspired" writings. thoughts?

TK

I think this method is better than most, but falls short... especially in the prophets. For example, when I hear Peter or Paul exegete a passage of scripture, the meaning they give is often something I'd never even consider. When the New Testament writers offered perspective on Old Testament passages, the historical-grammatical method was not applied. It should, however, be applied when it's obviously useful, such as when Paul addressed Jewish customs in the church. I'd say that, overall, this method is especially effective when dealing with the New Testament, but not always with the Old.

TK (Merry Christmas),

i have a hard time reconciling some of these points w/ how i understand "inspiration", particularly these:

a) Stay always within the historical, social, cultural & religious (ancient) contexts, when studying each event & writing.
b) Acknowledge that people in the 1st/2nd century (most of them illiterate) had some common sense (& religious aspirations) and were living mostly in a secular, "low-tech" (& unscholarly!) world; they thought in real time (their own day to day present).
c) Consider the (early) Christian texts as written by "flesh & blood"persons (and not necessarily scholars!) likely to have human motives (sometimes very obvious), and as addressed to contemporaries; then research the circumstances surrounding their compositions.

to me, these considerations seem irrelevant if the writers were actually inspired by God what to write. i could see these points applying to normal correspondence or uninspired writings, but i am not clear how they apply to "inspired" writings. thoughts?

Excerpted from Muller's page, underline mine for emphasis

At first, borrowing study bibles from the public library and, some time after that, critical books, I became very confused about the mess I was involved in: nothing made sense. For sure, one of my fear did not happen: I did not feel a pull to become religious. As a matter of fact, the opposite occurred: I kept shedding away any remain of my old faith.
It also became obvious that the key of the whole thing was to be able to answer, for each N.T. books and other early Christian writings, the following questions: why, where, from whom, to whom, when and how. Then I discovered that, almost everywhere, there are many "matter of fact", trivial, anecdotal, "against the grain" and other interesting clear-cut indications which could be used as "keys". I knew then, if I would persevere, I could reconstruct what I was after, the factual truth. As far as theology is concerned, understandably, I first kept my research simple, focusing on the diverse Jesus' titles and other items which could be answered simply: mention of pre-existence or not, who is the Judge?, where is the Kingdom?, etc.
Little by little, my understanding grew and my research got more sophisticated & productive. Not being a (paid) theologian, scholar or writer (but my work has been qualified as "scholarly" by some of my readers), and starting from scratch & using a "global" approach, gave me (I strongly believe so) a tremendous advantage & unrestricted freedom and, shall I say, allowed me to see the forest from the trees.

I felt I made "breakthroughs", and now I have a clear understanding of early Christianity & its development. I must say, this has been the center of gravity of my work and where I am the most confident. Other subjects, such as the historical Jesus (which I got disinterested for years) and others, such as the prophetic books, I consider them to be by-product or peripheral outcome of my studies.

As I said in my first post, I just "found" this link in a Word doc in my computer the other day. I had posted this @ Beliefnet about four years ago in a discussion about hermeneutics.

Now I'm reminded of what all Muller has done and what the scope of his studies have encompassed. Muller is French and in his brief autobiography he explains how he came to study Early Christianity (of the first and second centuries). This, of course, would include the NT, the writings of the Ante-Nicean Fathers, and early Gnostic materials.

What I find impressive is how this guy came to study essentially everything independently; his having a nominal Catholic background and "starting with a blank slate," so to speak, when he didn't really know anything much about the Bible, ff., etc.

Looking back I now see what I really liked about Muller. I did something quite similar when I got my faith back in 1999. I had been an agnostic, eventually briefly becoming an atheist, when I had this return to faith. I had essentially rejected everything and anything I had been told or taught about God...and did I mention I dropped out of a Bible college my senior year in 1982? (No, but I won't go into that)....

The first thing I did on my newly found faith after buying a Bible was to get any kind of books I could afford that had to do with the actual NT era historical context. This included the Dead Sea Scrolls (Vermes' translation) and The Other Bible (collected non-canonical writings, edited by Ron Cameron). I read almost all of Elaine Pagels' books.

To try to make a long story short, lol, I'll just say that though I had a real renewed faith in God; I remained skeptical about anything had been taught earlier in my life! Stated another way, I was practically cynical about everything...and read the NT as if I were in Corinth in the first century (when reading Corinthians again). I studied everything I could find about the city of Corinth "back then" and continue to study the Bible critically to this day.

To reply to you: I too had a more or less fundamentalist (or pretty conservative) view of inspiration. Today, I can't really describe what my view on it is. "Hyper-critical Conservative?" "Almost Fundy Liberal?" I have no idea, lol. Thanx for your reply, TK. Makes me think!
Rick

JC (Merry Christmas),

When the New Testament writers offered perspective on Old Testament passages, the historical-grammatical method was not applied.

Agreed, for the most part. They didn't always quote from the OT in ways that we would, do, or even can! The ways NT writers used the OT could be an entire topic by itself; a lot is involved.

From our exegetical perspective we are looking for the objective truth as expressed by NT authors: How they saw the entire revelation of God as written in both their and in OT writings.

We may have something like an "exact" method as NT writers had when it comes to literal historical fulfillment of some OT prophecies. E.g., the return of Babylonian exiles as an actual historical event.

Other prophecies, such as Is. 7:14 as quoted in Mt. 1:23, show the uniqueness of NT authors in how they interpreted Scripture. This is where we have to pause and consider their own specially inspired perspective.

I'll be back later (TNP radio is on now)!
This could be a cool discussion!
Rick

Hi, TK,

Please pardon my interjecting....

i have a hard time reconciling some of these points w/ how i understand "inspiration", particularly these:

a) Stay always within the historical, social, cultural & religious (ancient) contexts, when studying each event & writing.
b) Acknowledge that people in the 1st/2nd century (most of them illiterate) had some common sense (& religious aspirations) and were living mostly in a secular, "low-tech" (& unscholarly!) world; they thought in real time (their own day to day present).
c) Consider the (early) Christian texts as written by "flesh & blood"persons (and not necessarily scholars!) likely to have human motives (sometimes very obvious), and as addressed to contemporaries; then research the circumstances surrounding their compositions.

to me, these considerations seem irrelevant if the writers were actually inspired by God what to write. i could see these points applying to normal correspondence or uninspired writings, but i am not clear how they apply to "inspired" writings. thoughts?

For what it is worth, even inspired writings mediate between divine perspective and human comprehension - which is to say, they communicate the mind/heart of God in terms accessible to their human audience. John Calvin (whatever his other shortcomings) does a theological service when he points out this type of thing - that God's revelation is accomodated to human limitations. At times, these limitations may include cognitive paradigms, linguistic structures, and emotional receptivities.

Because of this, the points which you have identified are very important for suitably appreciating the significance of a particular writing. The human audience for a writing (which includes the writer him/herself, who was an audience to the inspiration of God) profoundly influences the form which the writing takes - and the form must be taken into account when trying to fairly discern the substance.

It is very important that the words of an inspired writing be engaged in their relational context, which includes historical, cultural, and psychological factors. As with any words, should they be removed from their setting, their actual meaning can be deeply misconstrued.

Shalom,
Emmet

Hello, Rick,

Thank you for your contribution in this thread.

If we take issue with the interpretive strategies employed by New Testament authors, why then should we accept their interpretations as inspired?

Shalom,
Emmet

P.S.: edited once....

emmett wrote:

If we take issue with the interpretive strategies employed by New Testament authors, why then should we accept their interpretations as inspired?

i guess that was the point i was trying to make in my post that you commented on. if the scripture is inspired by God (which i take to mean that it is exactly what God wanted to be written) then i dont see how these other considerations make a difference. if scripture is truly inspired (which i believe to be the case) then regardless of culture, prejudices, education etc of the writers, the writing is still correct as written because God wanted it that way.

TK

Greetings, Emmett & TK,

If we take issue with the interpretive strategies employed by New Testament authors, why then should we accept their interpretations as inspired?

As I was saying before, Muller used this methodology for both biblical and extra-biblical material (e.g., Early Fathers). His being French (and not being American) would figure in there too as European Christians don't have shall I say, "American issues concerning inspiration and innerancy" (?). From listening to N.T. Wright lectures, theologically conservative Christians in Europe just don't have "our" (American) issues and, by extension, our debates over these things.

Emmett, I'm not sure what you mean by "take issue with interpretive strategies of NT authors". Personally, I would and always try to take issue with interpretations of scripture . . . including my own. That is to say, I try to do all I can to make sure anyone's presuppositions aren't clouding the meaning of the text. I don't mean to say I have doubts about my core beliefs. But I always want to be aware of "I could be wrong". . . .

Above, I mentioned I read Elaine Pagels. I read her and other liberal scholars for basically one purpose: they give historical information that apparently seem un-necessary to most conservatives (and/or Evangelicals). I read Burton Mack's Who Wrote the New Testament? about four times, not because I accept his (or other liberals') presuppositions but for the vast historical backgound information they give. It seems Mack, when commenting on Romans, said that Paul had to "concoct" a way to be able to include Gentiles while allowing other Jews to come into the Christian fold. So Paul came up with a grand plan, according to Mack---he simply made the Church the "New Israel"! Mack did a great job of setting up the historical realites of the time regarding problems between Jewish-Christians and Gentile Christians but his liberal presupposition (along the lines of postmodernism) made the text say what Mack thought . . . not what Paul thought! This liberal paradigm is reminiscent of the Jesus Seminar which still has a pretty strong influence in the media and, therefore, secular thinking about Christianty.

Steve (Gregg) posted a link to a hermeneutical method that he has used for years on another thread (the one about Norm Geisler). It might be interesting to compare & contrast Muller's method with the guy Steve linked to (?).

Thanx for reviving the thread, Emmet,
Rick

Here's the thread:
Steve Gregg's point by point repsonse to Norm Geisler

The link (menioned above):
Grammatical-Historical Exegesis
of the Bible
by Bruce Terry

Do we need a new thread for this? I recall after reading the Terry link I had some areas of disagreement (but will save comments till later) . . . .
Rick