The Hermeneutics Quiz

Nope, this isn't a copy of an exam I had in seminary. This is a "quiz" that Scott McKnight has developed and posted at Building Church Leaders. And I figured that I'd take it.

My results:

I scored a 41 on a scale of 20 to 100, placing me squarely in the conservative range.

First, the conservative hermeneutic group scores 52 or lower. The strength of this view is its emphasis on the authority, ongoing and normative authority, of all of Scripture. It tends to operate with the line many of us learned in Sunday school: "If the Bible says it, that settles it." Such persons let the Bible challenge them with full force. Literal readings lead to rather literal applications. Most of the time.

The problem, of course, is that very few people are completely consistent here. At times one suspects something other than strict interpretation is going on when the conservative is willing to appeal to history to suspend the commandment to observe a Saturday Sabbath, but does not to appeal to history on other issues (e.g., capital punishment or homosexuality).

from Christianity Today.
I'd say that most people have a hard time being totally consistent -- especially when others are setting the standards of what that consistency is. Many folks also thing that to understand the Bible literally means to understand it as literally as it needs to be understood, and understood in context.

Posted by Warren Kelly at March 3, 2008 07:05 PM | TrackBack