My intent in this paper is to respond to recent works by Kevin Vanhoozer (Mere Christian Hermeneutics, 2024), Patrick Schreiner (The Transfiguration of Christ, 2024), and Richard Blaylock (JETS 67.3) concerning validity in biblical hermeneutics and biblical theology. This paper will proceed in two parts.
First, I will summarize and critique the “transfigural reading” proposed by Vanhoozer and Schreiner. Both authors look to the narrative of the transfiguration of Christ as a conceptual framework for their hermeneutical proposals and both seek to expand the literal sense of the text to include the spiritual senses, so I will interact with both simultaneously. While I affirm their zeal for a Christocentric reading of the Scriptures, including the Old Testament—the single hermeneutical approach of all Christians everywhere and throughout history—there are several problems. First, Vanhoozer continues to draw a hard line of separation between the human author and the divine author. We all should continue to affirm the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy, including the phrase “dual authorship,” but turning the doctrine of inspiration into multiple intents in the text muddles the interpretive enterprise unnecessarily. E. D. Hirsch pointed this out (Validity in Interpretation, 1967), and Vanhoozer interacted with Hirsch in a previous publication (Is There a Meaning in This Text?, 2009), but his consistent attempts to conjoin canonical context with divine intent continue to fall short. A much more reasonable and defensible hermeneutic acknowledges progression in revelation and inner-biblical interpretation as the mechanism by which the inspired human authors of Scripture develop messianic anticipation. Second, the fourfold method remains a reader-oriented hermeneutical grid. Schreiner attempts to correct this observation by arguing that the literal sense guides and constrains the other senses, but in doing so he has departed from the premodern fourfold sense and has simply embraced grammatical-historical exegesis in which all of our interpretive conclusions must be author-intended, that is, grounded in the text. Attempting to raise the fourfold method from the dead with such constraints also unnecessarily muddles biblical hermeneutics. I will conclude by summarizing my own mimetic hermeneutical proposal in the context of biblical theology that emphasizes inspired human authorial intent, progressive revelation, inner-biblical interpretation, and shared type between author and reader, all observable in the text of Scripture.
Second, I will offer an alternative answer to the question, Can we read like the prophets and the apostles? than the one recently published by Blaylock in JETS. This issue is important and relevant because my mimetic proposal hangs on this question. If we cannot imitate the biblical authors, my proposal falls short. Blaylock offers a nuanced answer—that in most cases we can, but on some occasions the biblical authors betray their “privileged hermeneutical space” via new revelation, which is something that we cannot replicate. I agree that revelation has been closed, but I do not agree that this means that we cannot imitate the hermeneutic of the biblical authors, which means that I do not agree with Blaylock’s reading of Daniel 9, Matthew 2, and 1 Chronicles 21. I will propose interpretations of these three texts that are in keeping with my mimetic hermeneutical proposal and that do not necessitate Blaylock’s conclusion.
The point of this paper is to continue to move the hermeneutical discussion further toward a Christian reading stance characterized by an emphasis on authorial intent and imitation of the hermeneutics of the biblical authors and away from the problematic proposals offered by TIS.