Resource for Further Study:

• Mere Christian Hermeneutics by Dr. Kevin J. Vanhoozer

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Transcript

Kathleen Noller: Welcome to the Questioning Belief podcast sponsored by the C.S. Lewis Institute. I'm your host, Dr. Noller, former atheist turned Christian and biomedical scientist. Please join me as we tackle common and nuanced objections to Christianity with the help of a topical expert.

Objection: Christians state that Scripture is infallible, and most Protestants hold to sola scriptura, yet Christian leaders across different sects hold varied interpretations of key passages, resulting in notable differences in both theology and practice. These differences arise from different interpretations and approaches to reading Scripture, which either betray a pluralism within Christianity itself or an insufficiency of Scripture as God's method of communication.

Guest Introduction: Joining us today to tackle this objection is Dr. Kevin J. Vanhoozer, author of Mere Christian Hermeneutics: Transfiguring What It Means to Read the Bible Theologically. This is the winner of Christianity Today's 2025 Theology Book Award (Academic) among many others. Dr. Vanhoozer has a PhD from the University of Cambridge and currently serves as Research Professor of Systematic Theology at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. Before that, he was Senior Lecturer in Theology and Religious Studies at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland. He is the author or editor of over 20 books and serves as theological mentor for the Augustine Fellowship of the Center for Pastor Theologians.

Today, we'll be discussing his approach to biblical hermeneutics termed "mere Christian hermeneutics"—essential principles for reading the Bible as Scripture everywhere, at all times, and by all Christians.

Welcome, Dr. Vanhoozer.

Kevin Vanhoozer: Thank you for having me.

Kathleen Noller: Thank you for joining us. So, before we dive into this phrase "mere Christian hermeneutics," I'd like to define a few terms for our lay listener. So, what exactly is biblical hermeneutics? How does it differ from a more general hermeneutics?

Kevin Vanhoozer: Right. First of all, thanks for that objection that you stated so well. It pretty much is the story of my life—that is, trying to answer that objection. And I'm concerned about this because it's bad for the witness to be perceived as not being able to agree about anything. So you asked about what hermeneutics is. Hermeneutics is a fancy term. It's from the Greek god Hermes, the messenger god. Hermeneutics is the discipline that helps us understand what it is, what's involved in interpreting messages, especially messages that come in written texts. So, some people have defined hermeneutics as the science of interpretation. Wilhelm Dilthey said that hermeneutics is to the human sciences what explanation is to the natural sciences. It's the principle that gives coherence and consistency and respectability to this group of disciplines all engaged in trying to understand rightly. So, hermeneutics, the science of hermeneutics, some would say the art—of textual interpretation. And then when we preface it with "biblical hermeneutics," we're specifying a particular text. And one of the big questions is: do we read all texts with the same principles, or are there special principles for special texts? So that's the difference between general and special hermeneutics.

Kathleen Noller: Okay. And so how does hermeneutics relate to something which maybe lay people are more familiar with, like biblical exegesis? 

Kevin Vanhoozer: Yeah, well exegesis has to do with the process by which we lead meaning out of the text. Ex means "to lead out of." What we're trying to lead out of the text is meaning. And so, hermeneutics really has to do with the principles for right exegesis. Because if misinterpretation is possible, if you can get it wrong—then we want principles that will help us get it right. And so, exegesis or hermeneutics are joined at the hip. You really can't do exegesis without assuming something about hermeneutics, even if you never use the term.

Kathleen Noller: That makes sense. So, let's dive into mere Christian hermeneutics now. You use that in your book as a way to overcome historical, ethnic, denominational, and disciplinary divides in other approaches to biblical hermeneutics. So, what are these divides, and why do we need to overcome them in the first place?

Kevin Vanhoozer: Well, again, divides aren't good for Christian witness. And I wrote the book largely because we're seeing the same kind of polarizations that are everywhere in culture—they're in the church. And again, this isn't a new problem. There's been polarization in the church from the beginning, unfortunately. You know, we have the biggest division: the Eastern and Western segments of the church. That's a millennium old. We have the Protestant-Catholic divide. That's about 500 years old. And then we've got a number of Protestant divides—or at least distinctions. We're not going to assume that every distinction is a division, but there are differences, and the list goes on. And really, these distinctions, divisions—whatever you call them—they're often the number one reason non-Christians give for not accepting the claims of Christianity. Why would that be the case? Well, the Apostle Paul himself says in Ephesians 4:4–6: there is one body and one Spirit, one Lord, one faith, one baptism. But when that body appears—at least to external observers—to be divided, then it seems to falsify Paul's claim.

So, we've got the denominational divides, we have historical divisions like East and West. And then there are ethnic divisions. You know, even in the Reformation 500 years ago, there was a difference between the Swiss Reformation, the German Reformation, the French Reformation. And then those differences today in our current society have become intensified. There's something called the Society of Biblical Literature. It's the professional society for biblical exegetes. And if you look at the annual program—and I attend every year—if you look at the annual program, a number of the different groups are grouped around special interests, and many of them ethnic interests. So, you've got an Asian American group, you've got an African American group, you've got a Caribbean group, you've got Africans. So, there's... And then there are different groups organized around gender preferences as well. So, these ethnic differences reflect different kinds of identity approaches to biblical interpretation. Now, there are some positive examples as well. There's a Wheaton New Testament scholar, Esau McCaulley. He's African American, and he's written a book called Reading While Black. And he rightly acknowledges that all of us read from our social location that is, who we are does affect the way we read. But what I like about Esau McCaulley's work is that unlike others who do practice a kind of advocacy hermeneutics, where they're simply reading for their own tribe, McCaulley doesn't fall into that trap. He doesn't say, "Only my way of reading is the right way." On the contrary, he's a Christian reader. And he thinks we need to listen to other communities of readers so that we hear everything God is saying. And I think this is right. My own approach—this mere Christian approach—argues that no one interpretive context is more privileged or superior to the others. That in fact we need to read in the context of the one holy apostolic and catholic—which means universal—church if we're going to read rightly.

Kathleen Noller: So it's interesting that you touched on that piece, which I very much see as an issue in apologetics—is that one of the main, I don't know if you call it techniques or approaches, that I use and the other folks use to draw people to Christianity or just theism in general is to help them recognize that there's an objective truth. And so oftentimes those who are coming from outside the faith will say, "Well, you're telling me that there's this objective truth. If you're Protestant, you believe in sola scriptura. But I can plainly see that there are disagreements—either sectarian conflicts or disagreements within, like you said, Protestantism itself—on how to interpret a particular passage that has real practical importance." So I think something like mere Christian hermeneutics is a very timely and appropriate vision to have, an emphasis to have here.

Kevin Vanhoozer: If it's possible. And that was the big question for me: is such a thing possible?

Kathleen Noller: Yes. So, after writing—I'll ask you: do you feel as if it's possible? Or were there things that you discovered along the way that sort of made you think it was more or less possible?

Kevin Vanhoozer: Well, what led me to write it was simply the question: is it possible? And I think I have to say I stepped out in faith. I wasn't sure. It's not an easy answer because, again, if you look at the history of interpretation, what jumps out at you are the differences. But I was encouraged by C.S. Lewis's book Mere Christianity, which is doing something similar. But I wanted to do what he was doing—I wanted to do it for Christian hermeneutics. 

Kathleen Noller: Yes, I think from the C.S. Lewis Institute folks will know that story well and know the metaphor of the hallways connecting the different rooms and really be able to visualize that and appreciate that. Before we go into the history of these reading cultures—which I think is an important piece to your book that I want our listeners to understand—I'd like to go through some basic steps of biblical interpretation or sort of questions that folks should be asking themselves before they attempt their own interpretation. And so, the first step from your book is to determine what you're reading. So, what is a biblical text? So, you discuss how important it is to see the Bible as a divine address with a divine purpose. So how should we view the Bible to build the strongest foundation for later interpretation?

Kevin Vanhoozer: Well, we must be honest and truthful. We have to get real. We have to deal with the reality of what the Bible is. So, I think—and so you've raised a great question. Before we get into the nitty-gritty of whose interpretation is right, we have to ask the basic question: what is the biblical text? And to be honest, this is where I think interpreters begin to disagree. They begin to diverge on this very point. So, before I get into discussions with biblical scholars about this or that interpretation, my inclination is always to ask, "So what do you think the text is? What is a text? And in particular, tell me how you're viewing the biblical text." And, you know, we have these terms—"high view," "low view"—and so on. I just want people to be clear: tell me what you think the text is, and then we can talk hermeneutical business. 

Kathleen Noller: So how would that play out for somebody who's perhaps listening and is not a Christian and they don't view the Bible as divinely inspired or the living word or something like that? Is it possible for them to even interpret the Bible in a way that would lead them to discover truths? Or how do they navigate that?

Kevin Vanhoozer: Yeah, great question. So, I think the Bible can be read on one level by anyone. It's a story. It purports to be historical, but it's a narrative account of what God has done to form a people. People can understand that. I don't know that simply reading the text without the inner persuasion of the Holy Spirit is going to convince people, however. But this raises all sorts of theological questions. How do we come to faith? Can you argue someone into the faith? What I think you can do with argument is take objections away. But taking objections away isn't the same thing as coming to faith. I've had discussions with people where, after a lot of argumentations, I was able to dismantle or to defeat a particular objection. But that didn't necessarily mean that they were ready to accept the positive claim. So, the Bible is written as testimony.

You know, this is particularly clear in the Gospels, but really in one sense all of Scripture is a testimony. It's humans saying something—they're confessing what they have seen and heard with their own eyes. The Bible's quite explicit that this is what we have in the New Testament in particular. What we have seen and heard and touched—this is what we're talking about. So, I would simply ask non-Christian readers to read the Bible for what it purports to be: testimony to something extraordinary, and then to try to do justice to this testimony. Where did it come from? What were the interests of the people that led them to give this testimony? And, more importantly, why were these people ready to die for this testimony?

Kathleen Noller: Yes, that's a very good point. And I'd love to touch on as well the identity of the Bible as the living word. So, if we're trying to interpret the meaning of something that's alive—if I can even use that phrase—should we anticipate a change in biblical discourse in different contexts? Do we need to account for this living nature of Scripture when asking what it is we're reading and how does that affect us?

Kevin Vanhoozer: Yeah, well, I think what I would say is what's living is the author of Scripture, the voice speaking in and through Scripture, the Spirit working in our minds and hearts to convict us of the truth of what we're reading. That's what's alive. I wouldn't say the text is alive in the sense that today it's something that it wasn't yesterday. So, because it's a text, it's discourse—something someone said—but it's fixed. It's made permanent and determinate because it has been written down. And that is our standard. Wherever our social location happens to be, wherever we are in time or space, Christians can always assess where they're standing according to this fixed standard. So, the discourse is fixed, the author is alive, and the subject matter of the text is alive as well because it's Jesus who is risen from the dead. So, the author and the subject matter are alive, but the text is fixed in writing.

Kathleen Noller: Yes, that's a very important clarification for folks when they're struggling with the concept of the living word. And you mentioned in your book as well. So, after we identify what the Bible is and what a biblical text is, then our second step is to discern the purpose of our reading the Bible. So, if we read the Bible correctly, let's say, what should happen—or what should be our goal when we're reading it?

Kevin Vanhoozer: Yeah, so as I mentioned, the text is discourse fixed in writing. And discourse has to do with what someone says to someone about something for some purpose. We often forget that last bit: for some purpose. So, I think if we're reading the Bible correctly, we must at least recognize the purpose for which must give. And this comes from Isaiah 55:11. The Lord says, you know, I've sent my word, and it will not fail to accomplish the purpose for which it was sent. And so, as interpreters, yes, we need to pay attention to what it's saying, what it means, but we also need to ask ourselves: what is the purpose for which God has given us this word? What are we supposed to do with it? And I think—and here maybe we come back to your point about the liveliness of Scripture—Scripture is alive, I guess, in the sense—not that it changes—but it has energy.

It has the capacity to change things. It has the capacity to make a difference whenever people read it. I think what God has given us Scripture for is not only to change our minds and reorient our hearts, but ultimately God wants to form a holy nation with this book. This is a constitutional text, a covenantal text. The purpose of Scripture is to call a people—a people of God—together, which both the Old and the New Testament identify as a holy nation—that is, a nation within the nations of the world, a nation that is set apart for a special purpose. And so that, I think, the purpose of the biblical text ultimately is holy nation-building.

Kathleen Noller: And I appreciate the metaphor used in your book as well of ascending the mountain. So, we're charting the pathway to the place where God speaks. We're following the steps of Moses and of Peter. And this Bible is, like you said, sort of a covenantal text, a sort of constitution of what it means to be a citizen of the Lord. And so that brings me to your next concept, which is the reading culture. So, in your book, you define the reading culture of people who read a text as the set of interpretive practices shared by a community, and you also give three historical examples of different biblical reading cultures. You have the patristic, medieval, and Reformation cultures. Can you briefly take us through these examples and why you selected them?

Kevin Vanhoozer: Yeah, so again, where the objection you raised at the beginning has to do with different interpretations that have characterized Christians. And as I said, the differences appeared pretty quickly in the church. The patristic age is where it all began—early Christianity. In the patristic age, if you've done any work in the history of biblical interpretation, you'll have come across this contrast often described as the school of Antioch and the school of Alexandria. So, this is early on—as I say, third, fourth century—so very early Christianity. And these were the two major centers—these two cities—and there were churches in both places and theologians in both places. And they read the Bible differently. They had different emphases, and the one sort of worried about where the other was going. And it's a long story, but it has to do with the literal versus spiritual contrast. Some in Antioch wanted to read according to the letter, but others in Alexandria, under the influence of Plato's philosophy and so on, they wanted to kind of get above the earth to the heavenly, and they read in a kind of spiritual or allegorical way. And so, the literal versus allegorical tension—that really started way back in the early church in these two so-called schools of Antioch and Alexandria. And then in the medieval period, starting in the 12th and 13th century, that's when universities came into being. And interestingly, the university came into being largely as an institution that was trying to help people read the Bible well.

These universities came out of cathedrals. They all started for Christian purposes. And in the university, again, there was a bit of tension between those who wanted to read to further Christian spiritual growth and those who were beginning to read to try to get the right doctrine. And so, you have the monastic reading culture in the monasteries, you have the scholastic reading culture in the universities. And again, we see the same kind of tension: do we read spiritually or do we read according to the letter or to get the teaching right? And then we move to the modern age, and that's where we have a really big change because now people are reading the Bible still in universities, but not necessarily as Christians. At the time of the Enlightenment—18th and 19th centuries—there was a paradigm revolution. People began reading the Bible not as the word of God, but as a human source for the history of religion. That is a sea change. And what was lost was the idea of divine authorship. And when that happened, the Bible became like Samson after his haircut—as weak as any other human text. And that's where we are on the other side of that now. So, you've got courses on the Bible—people still take them in universities—but now they read it as literature, or they read it as a kind of sourcebook for reconstructing the history of ancient Israel or the church. So, we're in a very different situation from the patristic era, but the idea of a reading culture still applies. We're now just in a different kind of Bible reading culture.

Kathleen Noller: Yes, that's how I—so I did not go to a Christian university or Christian school. I didn't convert till late adulthood. And that's how I read the Bible as well. And my first introduction to the Bible was reading an excerpt and making a sort of allegorical comparison between Adam and Jesus and Achilles. And so that was the context in which I became familiar with it. So, I'm very familiar with what you're talking about there personally as well. I want to go back to Origen in that early church fathers reading culture—origin of Alexandria. So, as I understand it, he's sort of the first one to professionalize biblical interpretation, but he's not really looked upon favorably by the church today. So, I just wanted to ask you: why does he sort of looked upon unfavorably, and what can we still learn from him?

Kevin Vanhoozer: Yeah, he would. Yeah, so he was a biblical scholar. I mean, he did what is now called text criticism. He compared different manuscripts. The reason he's looked on unfavorably by many today is that he was part of the school of Alexandria, and he read allegorically. He kind of defended his approach by appealing to a verse in, I think it's 1 Thessalonians 5:23, where Paul distinguishes body, soul, and spirit. And Origen says, "Well, the text has these different parts as well. We can read for the body—that's the literal sense—but that's kind of the lowest level. And we can read for the soul—that's sort of the moral upbuilding way of reading. Or we could read for the spirit." And then he went allegorical. And the thing about allegory is the allegorical interpretation is a way of interpreting the text as meaning something other than it says. The Greek term for "other" is allos. That's where we get our term allegory—from allos. So, we're reading the Bible as meaning something other than it says. Well, the big problem here is if it means something other than it says, how—what kind of checks and balances do we have then to determine the meaning? If you cut the tie with the letter of the text, what else is there? And so modern biblical scholars now look back at Origen and they just think, "Oh, he was a freewheeling fantasy interpreter. You know, there was—he didn't have interpretations that were earthed." And I don't think that's entirely fair, but that's how it looks from our vantage point. It looks as if he's interpreting in a kind of arbitrary way. And that sort of opens Pandora's box of hermeneutics, right? You could go anywhere once you cut the tie from the letter of the text.

Kathleen Noller: Does anybody really use the allegorical reading culture heavily nowadays, or is it mostly done away with?

Kevin Vanhoozer: Well, the answer is yes, and the other answer would be people have defended the allegorical method. They've tried to establish that there are criteria. They just aren't the kind of criteria that modern biblical scholars look for. But some people would say that one way of thinking about the allegorical sense would be to call it the Christological sense. In other words, Origen had theological controls. It wasn't just freewheeling—saying whatever comes into my mind. Orthodoxy was a control in his interpretation. And the other reason people are returning—or at least open to allegorical interpretation—is that it's spiritually edifying. It does build up the spirit. It encourages us in our faith, whereas modern modes of reading sometimes can be rather dry in the eyes of some. So, it's complicated, but there are people trying to read allegorically and defend the practice today as a valid Christian practice.

Kathleen Noller: So, what would you say are the most popular reading cultures today, and which historical traditions that we've discussed are they closest to? And I realize this might differ very widely depending on which sect or part of Protestantism or part of Christianity.

Kevin Vanhoozer: Exactly. So that's exactly right. It all depends on one's social location. I think a lot of students in Bible schools are probably using an inductive Bible study method. A little bit like Mortimer Adler's How to Read a Book approach—only for the Bible. Kind of a common-sense, in-our-culture way of reading the text. But if you're Eastern Orthodox, you're going to be coming at it from a very different way. And again, if you're in the academy—as you know—you'll be reading it. So, I think the problem today is there are many, many, many reading cultures. And when I was saying about polarization in our society, it applies here too. We don't know how to talk to one another rationally as well as we should. And so, what we have then is not just a conflict of interpretations ”You think it means this, I think it means that." No, the conflict is more radical. It's a conflict of approaches to interpretation. And again, that's why I wrote my book. I was trying to address that problem.

Kathleen Noller: Yes, absolutely. So, I'm wondering, as we're talking about the different reading cultures throughout history, are biblical reading cultures throughout history influenced first by surrounding secular influences, like the Enlightenment, or are they themselves the influencers—perhaps in the patristic period?

Kevin Vanhoozer: Yeah, great question. I actually have a little theory here. It sounds scientific. I borrowed it from Isaac Newton. I call it my three laws of hermeneutical motion. And I'm serious about it though. Here's my first law of hermeneutical motion. And it's this—and this is something I have not seen falsified. In other words, I have a hypothesis; I've tested it, hasn't been falsified yet. Here's the first law: every type of criticism developed in the academy eventually gets applied to the way people read the Bible. Every kind of literary criticism. Every cultural trend or development in society eventually affects the way people read the Bible. And then my third law—this is again a hypothesis—is that if I'm right, if the first two laws are right, then it means that the way we read the Bible is a very telling barometer of where the academy and society are going. And that's why so much polarization and conflict is seen in biblical interpretation. It reflects broader social and cultural trends. Now, that's my law, but there's also an exception, I think, and it's this. There is a movement that started, oh, maybe 25 years ago. It's hard to identify when movements start, but it's called the theological interpretation of Scripture. Now that's a form of interpretation that I didn't see coming in the academy or in broader culture.

Kathleen Noller: No.

Kevin Vanhoozer: So, I have a lot of time for this. I think it may be a movement of the Holy Spirit.

Kathleen Noller: Oh, that's very exciting. So, what are the characteristics of this movement? What are the hallmarks of it so folks can recognize it in their churches? Well, I was very excited about it when I first got on, and I ended up being the editor of a dictionary called Dictionary for the Theological Interpretation of the Bible. But as we were soliciting contributors, we cast the net rather widely. And so, lots of approaches wanted to come in under this rubric of theological view of Scripture. And to be honest, I think it confused people and there wasn't just one approach. And so, to be honest, some biblical exegetes have soured on this idea of theological interpretation, which is why I now use the term "trans figural interpretation." I'm trying to reclaim the idea under a different name just because the name has become a little bit unpopular. But to answer your question, I think what makes it theological is remembering that God is central to the task of biblical interpretation.

Thomas Aquinas in the medieval period said that theology is about theologia—the teaching of God about God. It's God teaching about God. And it's for the sake of our becoming the people of God. And that's what the Bible is. It's God teaching about God in order to form the people of God. So that's a lot about God, but that's why I refer to it as theological interpretation. It's interpretation that remembers God must always be front and center. And you might say, "Well, of course it's about God." But as I mentioned, in the modern academy, the Bible is not read as the word of God.

Kathleen Noller: Yes.

Kevin Vanhoozer: It's read as a work of literature or as evidence for reconstructing what happened behind the text, as it were.

Kathleen Noller: That's a very seemingly simple foundational principle, but very much should not be taken for granted in the academy today. I'd like to now move and discuss how to interpret a biblical passage as literal, and you talk about sensus literalis or literal sense. What does that mean, and how does that differ from a literalistic interpretation? And how do you apply that to, say, a poetic passage or a proverb?

Kevin Vanhoozer: Yeah, great question. Difficult question because the idea of the literal sense is confusing and complicated. It's confusing because people use the term "literal" today in lots of different ways and so much so that many of the uses don't seem to mean what the term used to. So, have you ever heard someone say something like, "I literally died of fright"? Yeah, we use the term, and it really has just become a term of emphasis because I would want to say, no, you didn't literally die of fright. You're standing right there. You're alive. But "literal" traditionally simply meant according to the letter of the text. We talked about the letter of the law. And so, it's important to be literal in the sense of paying attention to the letter. But what I want to say is letters themselves don't have meaning. Words themselves are just potential meaning-holders. Words don't have meaning until someone does something with words. So, if you think about a dictionary, a dictionary is simply a report on how most people use certain words.

Dictionaries report common usage. And the thing about words is you can use the same word in many ways. Simple words like "hot." If I say "he's hot," wow, what did I just say? What I said was clear: "he's hot." But what does it mean? You need to know more about what I had in mind, what my context was. Am I in a hospital? Am I watching a tennis match? Wow, those two contexts are going to make my statement mean something different. What am I actually doing with my words? So, what I mean by literal interpretation is doing justice to what authors were doing with their words on a particular occasion. And I think it's an important notion to get right because when we're speaking, we want other people to do justice to what our aim is in speaking. We want them to do justice to what we've done with words. So, I think we owe authors an ethical obligation to work hard at understanding. To work hard at making sure that we're following the way the words were intended to go. So that's what I mean by the literal sense: following the way the words go—what the author was doing with them—and that is harder to do than to say.

Kathleen Noller: Yes, absolutely. I think we've all heard the sermons where the pastor will give a single word out of the passage and say, "Well, this is the original meaning of the Hebrew or the Greek, and you thought that this translated word meant this, but actually the original Greek meaning of this one word changes the entire meaning of the passage." And perhaps that's just a simplistic translation of their hermeneutic and their exegesis to the lay person. I see that a lot in church. Is that something that is good practice, and how far of a scope do you typically take into account when you want to look at perhaps a single word? Do you look at it in a sentence and in a single book of the Bible? Do you always have to look in the Bible as a whole? And how does that contextual analysis of a word prevent it being drowned out by a metanarrative, if that makes sense?

Kevin Vanhoozer: Yeah, great question, great question. I've heard those sermons too, by the way. And by the way, I have to tell you, in the mid-20th century, a massive research project was done called Theological Dictionary of the New Testament. And what it is—it's an analysis of almost every word in the New Testament. And someone's written an essay about their theological meaning. But that project was scuttled by a biblical scholar named James Barr in a book called The Semantics of Biblical Language. And his argument simply was words don't work like that. In other words, I'm fascinated by etymologies, but the etymology doesn't necessarily tell you what the meaning of the word is on a particular occasion. Again, think of the word "hot." Not quite sure what the etymology is, but whatever the etymology is, you know we use the word to do different things on different occasions. That range of uses of a word is called the semantic range. And now where scholarship can help us is it can narrow down the range at a given time. It can say something like, "Well, in the first century, here's the range of what that term could have meant." Maybe it'll change in a few centuries, but in this century, here's the range of what that term could have meant. And so, knowing that is helpful because it gives us a high probability of what authors probably meant in using that word at that time. But again, I would urge us always to examine words in context. Don't take a word out of the Bible and do a word study. That's almost useless. You have to find out—you have to read it in context. And context is a flexible notion. It could be a sentence long, could be a paragraph, could be the whole book. It could be all the books that a particular author wrote. So context is important, and you can go deeper into the meaning of words as you widen the context you examine.

Kathleen Noller: So, when we're looking at the literal sense, my next thought is how does that relate to historical fact? Do they have to have a one-to-one correspondence and how do we relate the two?

Kevin Vanhoozer: So, if the literal sense has to do with following the way the words go when put into motion by an author on a specific occasion for a specific purpose, then the first question you have to ask is: was the author intending to talk about a historical fact? I think we're wrong if we think that literal interpretation always means that every sentence in the Bible will correspond to a historical fact. That's just wrong, because in many instances, the authors were not intending to talk about historical facts. We always must find out what they were talking about. Maybe they were talking about the future instead of a historical fact. Maybe they were talking about something that isn't a fact—an idea. So, it's an important question, but I think it's misleading to think that literal interpretation always must have a historical fact that corresponds to it. Everything hinges here again on what authors were actually talking about.

Kathleen Noller: Maybe Revelation would be an example of that as well.

Kevin Vanhoozer: Oh well yeah—I was just going to add, if I may, that instead of a linguistic tool that tells us, the big clue is often the literary genre that they've chosen to write. And that's why the book of Revelation is so interesting.

Kathleen Noller: Yes. So how do we determine the literary genre of a biblical text?

Kevin Vanhoozer: I'm glad you asked that question simply because it needs to be asked. I think too often we run for the dictionary, we look at the etymology—we should be going not just for linguistic competence, but for literary competence. And here I have to say this is one of the many reasons I so admire C.S. Lewis. He was an excellent reader. And Lewis is the one who said that the first question we have to ask if we're trying to understand something is: what is it? What kind of thing are we trying to understand? And that question—"what kind of thing"—that's the question of literary genre. A genre simply comes from this term genus in Latin, which means "kind." And so, to talk about literary genre simply is to remind us that there are many kinds of literature in the Bible and that knowing what kind of literature you're reading is probably the most important thing you need to know when you're interpreting a biblical passage. Is it literal, historical, poetical, apocalyptic? And so, what I like about C.S. Lewis is you know he has confidence that he can identify a particular genre simply because he has a personal acquaintance.

He's read so much. He knows it when he sees it. And so, I love his criticism of a New Testament scholar, Rudolf Bultmann, who Bultmann dismissed the New Testament as myth. He was a very important scholar, mid-20th century. His—he had a hermeneutic of demythologization—what the Bible means when you strip it of myth. But C.S. Lewis, looking at what Bultmann was saying, responded, "You know, the Bible is not myth. Have you ever read myth, Bultmann?" Lewis knew what myth was, and the New Testament wasn’t it. It didn’t feel like myth. So, we must become familiar with the conventions, the features, the characteristics of different kinds of genres. As 21st-century Americans, we're familiar with some genres. If you're one of the few that still read newspapers, for example, you should know the difference between a story that's reporting fact and an op-ed—you know, an essay that's giving you the opinion of the editor—or a Dear Abby letter or report of the stock market or the box scores of a baseball game. These are all different genres. We're familiar with them because they're part of what make up our life, our culture. But when we enter into the world of the biblical text, we may encounter some genres that are unfamiliar, or at least not as familiar to us. So, we have to kind of get up to speed to become competent, good readers, and become familiar with some of these conventions of less familiar genres like apocalyptic, which is, you know, end-of-the-world kind of literature. There are distinct characteristics of biblical apocalyptic and if we miss them, we're going to misread the book.

Kathleen Noller: So, what are some ways for perhaps a lay person to become familiar with these different literary genres in the biblical text? Is it through sort of a method like C.S. Lewis and reading a lot of other texts from the time, reading different genres? And if so, are there any particular ones that you might suggest to fill in the gaps of genres that we're less familiar with today?

Kevin Vanhoozer: Yeah, well, there really is no substitute for hands-on experience with different genres, but it also helps to have some guidance when they're unfamiliar. So, the first thing just to have in mind is: don't beat yourself down. You know, whenever you play a new board game, it takes a little bit of time to learn the rules, doesn't it? You have to kind of study the rule book. Then you make some moves. And then after a while, you're pretty good at the game. But in the same way, a genre of literature is like a game. You have to know the rules that are enforced. You have to know what kind of moves authors make. You must know what counts as a score and so forth. And so, you can study—well you know there are books on genres of the Bible that are helpful. And I think a good study Bible also addresses genre. But again, just being aware that you're dealing with a social convention, a kind of literature game, goes some way to help. If you're really serious about the study, though, then you want to compare what's going on in the Bible with other texts outside the Bible that are doing something similar. For example, we actually have Babylonian creation stories. And so it's interesting to read a Babylonian creation story like the Enuma Elish and then read Genesis and you get a sense of, "Oh, there's this in common, but my Genesis is different as well." So I think firsthand acquaintance with particular genres comparing with other ancient Near Eastern forms that are similar, and then just knowing that you're dealing with a kind of literature that is following certain rules to accomplish a particular kind of purpose.

Kathleen Noller: I think that might be helpful for a lot of folks as well because I hear a lot of objections—sort of armchair objections—to parts of the Bible because I believe folks are really not familiar with, let's say, the apocalyptic genre and so the Bible is their first and only encounter with that genre. And then when they do some more reading, they see that genre elsewhere and they say, "Oh, the Bible must have been copied" because that's such a unique genre to them.

Kevin Vanhoozer: Right.

Kathleen Noller: And so, they see that sign that is a sign of a copy, not as a literary genre across, you know, time and across cultures.

Kevin Vanhoozer: Yeah, and the thing is, how else can you communicate with people except by using familiar genres? Just because they're using the same form doesn't mean the content will be the same. But I also want to just point out that there's been lots of discussion about the Gospels in particular, because some would argue the Gospels are a unique literary genre. There are very few ancient examples. Some people point to biographies, but the Gospels are doing something more than just Jesus' biography. And so arguably though the Gospels are on one level easy to follow because they're stories of a beginning and the middle and an end. They're doing something I think quite distinct because they have content that is altogether exceptional and distinct.

Kathleen Noller: That's very interesting—as a unique genre. It's very special for folks to consider as well as, you know, we may see recurring archetypes or myths throughout history, but recurring genres as well. But I've never heard before—that the Gospels could be a unique genre. I'd like to talk about specific examples of biblical accounts and sort of apply your hermeneutic principles to that as well. The first I'd love to talk about is the creation account in Genesis. This is the most common example that I see perhaps in Protestantism where disagreement seemed to arise—to me mostly about genre and about the meaning of literal interpretation. And so, what guidance do we have here from the mere Christian hermeneutic approach and how can we handle the fundamentalists who equate literal interpretation with their account?

Kevin Vanhoozer: Yeah, you're right. The interpretation of Genesis has been a challenge for people from the early church onwards. One of my favorite theologians, Augustine, took three stabs at writing a commentary on Genesis, and he always got stuck in the early chapters because they're so rich in just a few words. The opening chapter of Genesis—you know—has provided food for centuries of thought. I think we have to remember social location again. You know, we're moderns, and the questions we bring to Genesis are often very modern questions. You know, "How long are the days of creation?" People ask that because they feel that there must be—or there might be potential conflict with what modern science says. And this is an enormously complex question. I was involved for three years with something called the Creation Project here at Trinity. We brought in scientists, biblical scholars, theologians, historians, and the idea was to discuss together how to read Genesis 1 through 11 well. So as the theologian in the room, I want to say these questions are all interesting and we can talk about them, but let's not bury the lead. Genesis 1 is about God. It's exalted theological prose. Now, we know from 1 John 1:5 that God is light.

And so, I find it fascinating that the first thing God says to create is light. Genesis 1:3: God said, "Let there be light," and there was light. Why? What's going on? Well, let me suggest—and this is what I do suggest in my book—I suggest that the whole Bible in one sense could be read as the story of God's light. God's light coming into the world. And light, of course, is a symbol of knowledge. And I think that when God says, "Let there be light," one of the things he's doing—he's doing many things with his words—but one of the things he's doing is he's telling us that he intends to make known himself. Let there be light. Let light shine. Let the knowledge of God be known throughout the universe. And the first thing we know about God from Genesis 1 is that He is the Creator of all things in heaven and on earth. That is what Genesis 1 is really trying to say because it's only when we know that God is different from everything else in the universe that we even begin to understand who God is.

Kathleen Noller: Yeah.

Kevin Vanhoozer: So, we can talk about the length of the days—I'm happy to do that—but let's not bury the lead and forget that what Genesis 1 is really establishing in these early chapters, this early chapter and early verses, is God's transcendence. Right, it’s caution against idolatry. It's a reminder not to confuse God with anything else in the world. But I want to go further here, if I may, because light doesn't just give knowledge, it's also a condition for life. And so, the God who is light begins to shine. And as we see in Genesis, life begins to appear. And then it gets even more interesting because in John 1, in John's Gospel in his prologue, he echoes Genesis and he says, the Word who was God and was with God came into the world. And that Word of God is the light of men. And in that light, there is life. And he's talking about Jesus. And so, I'm jumping, I know, from Genesis to John, but the point is all throughout the Bible, there's this story of how God's light is penetrating the world. And I find it also fascinating that the Apostle Paul after Jesus can refer to followers of Jesus as children of light. In Ephesians 5:8, he tells us to walk as children of light. And then at the very end of the Bible, Revelation 21–22, when we're thinking about the New Jerusalem—heaven on earth—we're told that the citizens of Jerusalem won't need light. Won't need the biblical text either because the one who is light will be there dwelling in our midst. So, there you have it—from Genesis to Revelation through the Gospels. It's all about light and it's all about God's plan to share the light that he is and the life that he has with us.

Kathleen Noller: I'd like to go back to more specifics in a bit, but I do want to continue this theme of the light and sort of the whole story of the Bible is this story of God sharing his light and the knowledge he has of himself through revelation. And you said in your book that Jesus' transfiguration—which you focus on—demonstrates that the literal sense is unchanged when we read theologically. So, can you take us through what exactly that means and why did you focus on the piece of the transfiguration specifically?

Kevin Vanhoozer: Yeah, thanks. That's a great follow-up question because I think the transfiguration is—dare I say—the climax in the story of God's light. I mean, light is the operative term in the story of the transfiguration. You know—it's the story of Jesus taking his disciples up on the mountain and he is transfigured, transformed. His face shines with a light brighter than humans have ever seen. Light, again, is the operative term. And I think what's happening is the disciples are being shown who Jesus is and always was. And so not only do I think the transfiguration is a key moment in the story of light, I think it's also an analogy of what happens when we read the Bible's text theologically. Here's the analogy: just as Jesus isn't changed by his transfiguration, but rather seen for what he is, so reading theologically doesn't change or distort the letter of the text—rather it lets the light of Christ shine through. So, something's happening, something's happening for sure. But it's not a change. It's not a distortion. It's not an erasure of the literal sense. It's rather the glorification of the literal sense. And so that's what I argue in the book. I want people to learn to read the Bible in a way that they see the glory of the literal sense. And to my mind, that's how to bring about a partnership and a reconciliation between biblical studies—who care about the letter—and theologians who care about seeing the light of Christ. We can do both when we read transfigurally.

Kathleen Noller: And it also sort of reminds me of, in a way, the re-enchantment movement a little bit and, you know, not just reading the biblical text as somebody who's sort of sovereign and above it, but just really being immersed in it, letting it lead you and being enchanted by it and sort of focusing on the glory of God and the way that you describe it sounds very beautiful to me.

Kevin Vanhoozer: Yeah, I have found reading the Bible to be not just a disciplinary exercise—you know, going through all the hermeneutical motions—but also a doxological exercise. Because if I get the meaning right, if I begin to see the light of Christ, I don't just take notes. I praise God.

Kathleen Noller: Yes. Before we go on to more practical questions and sort of summarize it with takeaways for especially what the layman should do with this information, I'd like to touch back on the Genesis question. I had one more follow-up with that. So if we see the creation account as a story about God and a way for God to identify himself and reveal himself as creator to us, and as light and sort of sharing his knowledge with us and his role as creator with us, does that mean that we can't read Genesis and try to pull out scientific truths or make comparisons of the natural sciences? Or how do those two interface with one another?

Kevin Vanhoozer: Yeah, a fair question, fair question. So, our primary responsibility as interpreters is understanding the text. And that means we have to stand under the text. And that means we have to adhere to the text's agenda first and foremost. Lots of interpreters come to the text and they want to overstand it—that is, they want the text to answer their questions. Now, I'm not saying that Genesis has nothing to do with science. I think it's primarily making theological points, but I think there are implications and entailments of what Genesis does say for our understanding of modern science. You know—in the Reformation time, some Protestants used the analogy of the two books: the Book of Scripture and the Book of Nature. And the point is, God is the author of both books. If he's the creator of heaven and earth, he's the author of both books. He's the author of nature.

And as a matter of fact, in the history of science, I think theology gave scientists confidence that the Creator did order His cosmos. You know, all those verses in Genesis about God separating the heavens or the firmaments above from the firmaments below—well, all those separations, there you know what exactly happened, it's hard to say, but what the text is telling us is that God created order out of chaos. And I think because God ordered things that the universe is intelligible. And that means science has grounds on which to stand and be confident and believe that if we approach nature methodologically—you know if we're attentive to nature we will come to know things. I think God designed our minds in such a way as to gain true knowledge of the world. Otherwise, we wouldn't be able to fulfill the creation mandate—you know to fill the earth and subdue it and to cultivate things, to even care for it rightly.

Kathleen Noller: Thank you for that. I'm going to leave that there because I feel like I could ask you questions for two hours on that subject. And I do want to get to our practical takeaways before we wrap up here. So how does mere Christian hermeneutics apply to the layman's everyday life? How should we be applying these practices to our Bible studies if we are outside of the academy?

Kevin Vanhoozer: Yeah, I'm not sure I've said all the practices that I talk about in the book, but probably the most important practice is reading for the big picture and for the ultimate subject matter of Scripture, which I believe is the light of God streaming from the face of Christ. I think that's the ultimate subject matter. And it's so important because you know reading is the first thing we learn in school, right—our ABCs. And so, I think we take it for granted. But reading the Bible is a special project. It's the privilege and responsibility of every Christian to be able to read the Bible. I taught at the University of Edinburgh for eight years, and what I loved about being there was just the idea that this was a university born out of the Protestant Reformation.

And many universities, as I mentioned about the medieval age—they existed to help people read the Bible intelligently and rightly. So, it's such an important project. Let's not skim over it too quickly. So, I think one of the things I want laypeople to take away is reading the Bible is a privilege and a responsibility, and you may have to work at it. You may have to work at it a bit to get good at it. The second thing I want people to take away is that, like the disciples that went up the mountain with Jesus to meet God, so when we're reading Scripture—as the church fathers often use this analogy—we're climbing a mountain. We're doing hard work, but at the top of that mountain, we're standing in the presence of the living God, and we want to hear His voice. So maybe we should get into the habit of reading the Bible with our shoes off because we're standing on holy ground.

Kathleen Noller: I love that.

Kevin Vanhoozer: Then the other thing I would want laypeople to remember

is that we're not the first generation, the first people to read the Bible. We're part of a cloud of witnesses. We're part of a communion of saints. And other Christians have been reading the Bible for centuries, and it would be nice if we had some idea of what they saw in Scripture. And the easiest way to do this is to familiarize yourself with the great creeds of the church. Because the creeds, like the Nicene Creed, the Apostles' Creed—they're not simply summaries of the Bible, but they're indications that we've understood it on a deeper level. For example, the Nicene Creed identifies Jesus as who he is—the eternal Son of God, not just a Palestinian man. He's the second person of the Trinity in the flesh. Unless you know that, you're not going to read the Bible rightly. So, I think I mentioned three things: just how important reading the Bible is. You know—reading it in the communion of the saints, remembering that we're approaching the Holy God as we do so, and that—I guess the fourth thing would be that the purpose of reading is really to gain the mind of Christ.

Kathleen Noller: So my last question for you is: when we are thinking about the reading culture that we're in, and you know hopefully those who have listened to this are going to look at their own reading culture and try to discern how they're reading the Bible and not sort of take that for granted, but what are the litmus tests of being in a good reading culture and its goodness? Of the culture—sort of discerned by its fruits, for example, the Christlikeness it produces and its adherence—or what are some good litmus tests for us?

Kevin Vanhoozer: I think that's a good one. I mean, you just cited Jesus' criterion, didn't you? By their fruits you shall know them. So, I think that's a good one. And there are different kinds of fruit, of course. But what strikes me about, again, the transfiguration, is that Paul uses the same Greek term. Oops, there I go again with etymologies. This is one of those sermons. But, I mean, it is fascinating that in the Gospels, Jesus being changed is being transfigured. The Greek term is metamorphoō. We get our term "metamorphosis" from that. Paul uses the same term in 2 Corinthians 3:18, and he says that as we behold the risen Christ, we are being transformed, transfigured into his image. So, one of the fruits then—the fruit I think I'm interested in—is Christlikeness. You know, are we in beholding Christ in Scripture becoming bit by bit—from one degree of glory to another, as Paul says—are we becoming more like him? Another litmus test, I guess, and this is a tough one—is: are we becoming people of interpretive virtue? I think sometimes people get into arguments because they're fearful of what the other person is saying. And I don't think everybody's right. I talk with people all the time who I think are wrong. But I think the way we respond to differences in Bible reading is so important. I don't think we should demonize others too quickly. I think we have to go the second mile to understand why they see in Scripture what they see. And another litmus test is: are we still being humble before the Word of God? If we think that we know so much that we've mastered the text, we're probably reading it the wrong way. As I said, Augustine tried to make sense of Genesis on several occasions over a span of 30 years. The point is we never master the text. We're the ones who are supposed to be mastered by the text.

Kathleen Noller: Yes.

Kevin Vanhoozer: So, another fruit would be: you know, are we praying for the text? Are we humbling ourselves before the text? Are we listening more than we're trying to tell the text what it's supposed to mean? Listening is a lot harder than knowing what it says already. So, I guess the one word to capture all of this is to make sure we're reading as disciples. Are we following Jesus? Are we growing? Are we being mastered rather than trying to become the masters? And then one last thing. I think that you know there are lots of "how-to" books that help us to apply the Bible. There's a lot of application in today's culture. And I'm not sure that's always the best question because what I worry about is that when we're always worried about application, we're making ourselves the point of reference. You know, "How can the Bible help me?"

Kathleen Noller: Yes.

Kevin Vanhoozer: "What can the Bible do for me?" And I think the true question of the disciple must reverse the polarities. We should be asking ourselves, as a reader of the Bible, as one formed by this text, what can I be doing for God?

Kathleen Noller: Yes, that's a wonderful way to frame it. And we actually just finished—so I'm a mentor with the C.S. Lewis Institute and we have a Fellows program and every month has a different subject. And so, we just finished our month with humility. And so, I don't know if those resources are up for everybody online, but that is reminding me very much of what you're talking about. And your second point too—very important and emphasizes our brotherhood as well, despite interpretive differences. I see this a lot in interpretations of Genesis and there is sort of sometimes wonderful witnesses where folks recognize a fellow brother or sister in Christ despite vast interpretive differences and some sadder circumstances that non-believers will look at and say, "Look, there's more infighting," and it won't be a good witness. So that's something for the Christians listening in to be aware of.

Kevin Vanhoozer: Yeah.

Kathleen Noller: But thank you very, very much, Dr. Vanhoozer, for joining us and lending us your wisdom. I'm going to close with a brief quote from the Bible from Matthew 17:1–8. It's on the Transfiguration: "And after six days Jesus took with him Peter and James and John his brother and led them up a high mountain by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became white as light. And behold, there appeared to them Moses and Elijah, talking with him. And Peter said to Jesus, 'Lord, it is good that we are here. If you wish, I will make three tents here, one for you and one for Moses and one for Elijah.' He was still speaking when behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them, and a voice from the cloud said, 'This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him.' When the disciples heard this, they fell on their faces and were terrified. But Jesus came and touched them, saying, 'Rise, and have no fear.' And when they lifted up their eyes, they saw no one but Jesus only." Thank you so much for listening to the Questioning Belief podcast, and thank you, Dr. Vanhoozer, for joining us.

Kevin Vanhoozer: It was a pleasure.