An oft-quoted word of wisdom about seminary education goes something like this: Don’t take classes. Take professors. In other words, the teacher makes the class. Find the teachers you want to learn from, not just the classes that look interesting.
For my first semester at Southern Seminary, I decided to take Hermeneutics (the art of interpreting the Bible), hoping it would give me a firm foundation for biblical interpretation throughout my seminary years. I wound up in the class of Dr. Robert Plummer – a young-looking professor with a quirky sense of a humor and a genuine love for the Scriptures. Though I took more than 90 credit hours of classes at SBTS besides Hermeneutics, the initial class with Plummer remained one of my favorites.
Now that I am serving in a church, I have often longed for a concise, easy-to-read primer on Hermeneutics that I could draw from for my teaching. I don’t have to wait any longer. Dr. Plummer’s book, 40 Questions About Interpreting the Bible (Kregel, 2010) is, quite frankly, the best Hermeneutics resource that I’ve come across.
The format makes it easily accessible. You can easily look up the question you want to answer. You can read straight through or skip around. I’ve been drawing heavily from it for a Hermeneutics class I’ve taught this spring at our church.
The strength of Plummer’s book is the variety of the questions he tackles: text transmission, questions of canon, how to determine meaning, approaching specific genres, etc. I was pleased to see his Hermeneutics course put together into this book. I was also happy to see his quirky sense of humor shine through. Here’s an example regarding Matthew’s typological use of Isaiah 7:14:
If we could go back in time to just after Isaiah penned chapter 7, verse 14 (reporting the prophet’s earlier interchange with Ahaz), the dialogue might go like this:
Plummer: “Pardon me, Isaiah. I’m from the distant future, and I’ve come back to chat with you. I was peeking over your shoulder, and I just noticed that you wrote that prophecy down about the promised child. Is that about Jesus?”
Isaiah: “Who is Jesus?”
Plummer: “Jesus is the coming Messiah who conquers sin and death forever.”
Isaiah: “Hallelujah! I didn’t know his name, but I knew he was coming. What do you mean by asking, ‘Is this text about Jesus?'”
Plummer: “Well, in the future, before the Messiah is born, God promises through his angel that a virgin will give birth, similar to the events in your day. Matthew, one of God’s messengers in Jesus’ day, says that this text of yours was pointing to the Messiah.”
Isaiah: “Yes, I see. Just as God signified his coming intervention with the supernatural birth of a child in my day, so in the final deliverance, again he promises the supernatural birth of a child. The historical parallels show God’s consistent intentions! Of course, not knowing exactly how God would repeat his deliverance, I was not fully conscious of the final typological correspondence until you told me. But, I knew later deliverances were coming. I wrote this text, consciously knowing it might be reiterated in a later, parallel, heightened saving event. Yes, yes, of course that is a valid use. That’s what is called biblical typology, with a correspondence between earlier events (the type[s]) and later events (the antitype[s]).”
Plummer: “Thanks for talking with us, Isaiah.”
Isaiah: “Shalom.”
There are a number of ways that a pastor can use this material. He can utilize the materials most relevant to his current situation and most helpful for his congregation. He can use it for himself, as an aid in his own Bible study. Or he can summarize sections into smaller chunks for a small group course.
I don’t agree with everything in Plummer’s book. (For example, I have doubts about authorial intent being the only determining factor of a text’s meaning; likewise, I’m open to the fourfold sense of Scripture, within reason). But I still can’t think of a more helpful introduction to Hermeneutics than this one. Get 40 Questions and use it. You won’t be disappointed.
