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The following essay by Dan G. McCartney was presented as a paper at the annual meeting of the Evangelical
Theological Society in 2003.
by Dan G. McCartney
1. Biblical Exegesis in the Apostolic Period (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1975), p. 219
2. The Right Doctrine from the Wrong Texts?: Essays on the Use of the Old Testament in the New (ed. G. K. Beale; Grand
Rapids: Baker, 1994).
3. G. Beale, "Positive Answer to the Question," in RDWT, 388-89.
4. See note 6.
5. G. Beale, “Positive Answer to the Question,” in RDWT 387-404.
6. Subsequent to the actual delivery of this paper, Greg Beale indicated some dissatisfaction with being classed
with the “grammatical-historical-only” people, and averred essential agreement with my material which follows.
However, as the quotation on p.1 shows, Beale still labors to preserve the notion that the NT writers were only
minimally midrashic; I am more sympathetic to Longenecker’s contention that the NT writers were, like their
contemporaries, unabashedly midrashic, and we need not jump through exegetical hoops to try to maintain
otherwise.
7. Such a empts are exemplified in David Instone Brewer's recent a empt (“Paul's Literal Interpretation of ‘Do
Not Muzzle an Ox’,” in The Trustworthiness of God: Perspectives on the Nature of Scripture [ed. P. Helm & C.
Trueman; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002], pp. 139-153) to demonstrate that Paul here was doing what in his own
time would have been considered a “peshat” or literal interpretation, because 1) all commands were addressed
not to animals but people, and hence were not for the benefit of animals but people, and 2) “oxen treading” in
Deut 25 would have been understood by Paul's Jewish contemporaries as a metaphor for men laboring. The
important issue for us, however, isn't whether Paul or his contemporaries thought he was doing literal exegesis,
but whether he actually was doing so. But of course I would argue that even if the original author and audience of
Deuteronomy understood “oxen” as a metaphor for human laborers (as I think Bruce Waltke has somewhere
argued), it is still the case that Paul is not interested directly in what that original audience thought, but in what
God meant in addressing Paul's audience.
8. Allegorical interpretation sometimes finds not the event but just the words of the text, or even smaller units, as
having symbolic value (such as the well-known interpretation in the Epistle of Barnabas of Abraham's 318 men
according to its Greek numerical le ers: tau iota eta.) But this is very rare in Christian interpretation generally.
Usually even allegorical interpretation looks at historical items as symbols (e.g. Rahab's scarlet thread was a
historical item, not just a word). Further, even where it is only words or a grammatical feature of a word that is
the basis of a meaning, one cannot really separate word and event. Events are only known through and given
meaning by the text, and the text itself is an artifact of history.
9. The well known typological rectangle of Edmund Clowney [readily accessible in G. P. Hugenberger,
“Introductory Notes on Typology” in RDWT, p. 340] shows the difference between allegorical, moralistic, and
typological interpretation.
10. One of my colleagues (Poythress) also points out that all “meaning,” even “historical meaning” is really, until
the eschaton anyway, an open-ended process.
11. Hugenberger, “Introductory Notes,” p. 336.
12. W. Kaiser, The Uses of the Old Testament in the New Testament (Chicago: Moody, 1985), p. 53.
13. To appeal to inspiration as somehow “allowing” the NT writers to do something no one else is allowed to do
seems odd in the face of the fact that the apostles were simply interpreting the way their contemporaries did. They
did not simply claim the blanket authority of inspiration; they argued their case (e.g. Peter in Acts 2 and Paul in
Acts 13 both argue that Ps 16 refers not to David but to Christ because David died). What did make them different
from their contemporaries was that their hermeneutic is consistently focused on Christ (F. F. Bruce, Second
Thoughts on the Dead Sea Scrolls), and derivatively on Christ's people the church (R. Hays, Echoes of Scripture).
14. For example, if we did not have the NT, then the exclusion of foreigners in Ezek 44 or Ezra’s prohibition of
northerners’ participation in rebuilding the temple would certainly suggest that the eschatological temple would
be more exclusive, not inclusive, of Gentiles.
15. Paul explicitly states in Eph 3:5 that previous generations did not know the musterion, because it was hidden
(v. 9), and only now is the manifold (polupoikilos) wisdom of God made evident (v.10).
16. Method does help in supporting results, and helps to prevent certain wrong conclusions, and even helps to
refine genre identification, but by itself it does not determine results.
17. Since Jesus berated the apostles for being slow to believe in Luke 24, one could conclude that they could have
figured it out had they been be er exegetes—but remember that the “slow-to-believe” apostles did already at that
point have the benefit of having heard Jesus talk about his death and resurrection a number of times, and they
heard him explain the centrality of Christ in the scriptures during his earthly ministry. Further, some Qumran
sectaries apparently actually did recognize that Ps 110 was about Christ (or christs), but their approach could
hardly be considered grammatical-historical. Analysis of the process by which both the Dead Sea community and
the NT writers reached similar interpretive conclusions is informative and relevant to our topic, but would take us
too far afield here.
18. This of course includes a canon decision, a decision not a ainable via grammatical-historical method.
19. Unless we envision no historical development, making the story no longer a story. See A. Edersheim's
instructive words in Prophecy and History, pp. 110f.: “...it is evident that if we were to maintain that those who
u ered or heard these predictions had possessed the same knowledge of them as we in the light of their
fulfilment, these things would follow: First. Prophecy would have superseded historical development, which is
the rational order, and God's order. Secondly. In place of this order we would introduce a mechanical and
external view of God's revelation.... Thirdly. It would eliminate from God's revelation the moral and spiritual
element — that of teaching on His part, and of faith and advancement on ours. Fourthly. It would make
successive prophecies needless, since all has been already from the first clearly and fully understood. Fifthly. Such
a view seems in direct contradiction to the principle expressly laid down in 1 Pet i.10,11, as applicable to
prophecy.” To restrict the meaning of a redemptive-historical text to what we think may have been understood in
the original historical se ing, is really to decide ahead of time that it is not really redemptive-historical!
20. I admit John Sailhamer a empts to do this, but is in my view profoundly unsuccessful. See his article on Ma
2:15 in WTJ 63:1 (Spring 2001), and the response by Pete Enns and myself in the same issue.
21. John Walton, “Inspired Subjectivity and Hermeneutical Objectivity,” The Master's Seminary Journal 13/1 (Spring
2002), p. 72.
22. “Inspired Subjectivity and Hermeneutical Objectivity.”
23. “I am not yet convinced that the hermeneutical methods developed since the Enlightenment have yielded
results so superior to those employed by the authors of the NT that we are entitled to put their hermeneutics on a
Schandpfahl or into a museum for good.” M. Barth, “The O.T. in Hebrews: an Essay in Biblical Hermeneutics,” in
Current Issues in New Testament Interpretation: Essays in Honor of O o A. Piper (eds. W. Klassen & G.F. Snyder; New
York: Harper, 1962), p 78. Although he was mostly addressing the issue of historical-critical method, his words are
still relevant. (Which goes to show that human authorial intent does not exhaust the meaning of even uninspired
texts.)
Dan McCartney (M.Div., Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary; Th.M., Ph.D., Westminster Theological
Seminary) is Professor of New Testament at Westminster Theological Seminary and author of Let the Reader
Understand: A Guide to Interpreting and Applying the Bible (Phillipsburgh, New Jersey: Presbyterian & Reformed,
1994).