Josh Philpot

Theology, the Church, and Music

Archive for January 2013

G. K. Beale on why the “Grammatical-Historical” approach isn’t enough

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“The usual ‘strict’ understanding of a ‘grammatical-historical’ approach is too limited in its scope, since it studies a passage primarily from only two angles: (1) investigation of only the human author’s viewpoint through a study of the historical, linguistic, grammatical, genre contexts, etc., of a passage; (2) the divine author can theoretically be left out of consideration until the ‘grammatical-historical’ study is complete, since the meaning sought for is only that of the human author. For example, even an interpreter who does not believe in divine inspiration must study a prophet like Isaiah from the viewpoint that Isaiah himself believed that he was inspired in what he wrote, and, therefore, that intention must be projected onto the process of interpreting Isaiah. How much more should this be the case for the believing exegete? Accordingly, this is only one example showing that considering divine intention should be part of a grammatical-historical approach. Thus, grammatical-historical exegesis and typology are two aspects of the same thing: hearing God speak in Scripture.”

G. K. Beale, “The Use of Hosea 11:1 in Matthew 2:15: One More Time,” JETS 55, no. 4 (2012): 700, fn. 14.

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Written by Josh Philpot

January 24, 2013 at 3:59 pm

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