Diagram of Keys to unlock Meaning

by koot van wyk Seoul South Korea 9 January 2008

Various scholars through the modern era has tried various keys to unlock meaning.

1. They all felt that pre-understanding is a backpack that all researchers and interpreters bring to the data (green line as a chain that locks proper meaning).

2. They all felt that a hermeneutical circle can be observed in the process (orange circle in the diagram).

3. They all suggested a key that would unlock this pre-understanding problem (chain) to open up "proper meaning".

4. SDA interpreters is linked to the position of Gerhard Hasel (bottom of diagram).

The Holy Spirit and Scripture are the boundaries within which the problem of pre-understanding unwinds and within which area the hermeneutical circle is sanctified to produce a proper understanding of meaning of the data.

5. Sources: Anthony C. Thiselton, The Two Horizons: New Testament Hermeneutics and Philosophical Description (Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1980). The numbers at the end 106; 112; 111, 109; 110; 91; 90; 88; are from this book. Gerhard Hasel's view is in Understanding the Living Word page 77.

6. Thiselton himself is confused with his attack against fundamentalism or biblicism. Thus, his good presentation is marred by unstability at times.

7. One should see the scholars who focus on Humanism or Anthropology as a center of importance over against the scholars who focus on Transcendental Revelation as the most important.

8. Liberals are those who, contra the Bible, wants to put anthropology at the center of interpretation.

9. Karl Barth said that "Either you believe or you are not. There is no third way" (Letter in December 1952).

10. Many of the scholars are Existential Atheists, Marxistic Atheists, Death of God scholars, Existential Theologians, Encounter Theologians but the Adventist position is none of them but rather Scriptural and Holy Spirit directed interpretation.


Diagram of keys to unlock meaning 1.jpgDiagram of keys to unlock meaning 2.jpg