Editorial, General, Review

Exegetical fallacies abound

D. A. Carson, a typical modernist, wrote a book about hermeneutics (modernist Bible interpretation methodology) called Exegetical Fallacies.

He tells this story, “Occasionally a remarkable blind spot prevents people from seeing this point. Almost twenty years ago I rode in a car with a fellow believer who relayed to me what the Lord had ‘told’ him that morning in his quiet time. He had been reading the KJV of Matthew; and I perceived that not only had he misunderstood the archaic English, but also that the KJV at that place had unwittingly misrepresented the Greek text. I gently suggested there might be another way to understand the passage and summarized what I thought the passage was saying. The brother dismissed my view as impossible on the grounds that the Holy Spirit, who does not lie, had told him the truth on this matter. Being young and bold, I pressed on with my explanation of grammar, context, and translation, but was brushed off by a reference to 1 Cor. 2:10b–15: spiritual things must be spiritually discerned — which left little doubt about my status.

“Genuinely intrigued, I asked this brother what he would say if I put forward my interpretation, not on the basis of grammar and text, but on the basis that the Lord himself had given me the interpretation I was advancing. He was silent a long time, and then concluded, ‘I guess that would mean the Spirit says the Bible means different things to different people.’”

Notice how Carson casts multiple areas of doubt on his brother in the faith:

  1. That the Lord could have shown a brother a thing,
  2. That the KJB’s language misleads a brother, and
  3. That the KJB’s text/reading misleads a brother.
  4. Although not stated, probably also, that the KJB’s translation misleads a brother.

The right approach of interpreting the Bible today is to start with the KJB and to approach the message of it believingly. If we believe the KJB is God’s standard for us, and we interpret properly, then the next step comes to pass:

“Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ:” (Ephesians 4:13).