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The Gift of Prophecy - Contents
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    Sola Scriptura: New Hermeneutical Alternatives

    Several post-Reformation hermeneutical trends began to overshadow the wide-ranging sola Scriptura principle and a more specific historicist interpretation of Bible prophecies. One of those trends was the Roman Catholic futurist and preterist responses to the Protestant historicist identification of the Papacy as the little horn that “grew exceedingly great” (Dan. 7:7-27; 8:9-14), the antichrist (2 Thess. 2:1-12), and the beast from the sea (Rev. 13:1-9). 30See LeRoy E. Froom, The Prophetic Faith of Our Fathers: The Historical Development of Prophetic Interpretation, 4 vols. (Washington, D.C.: Review and Herald®, 1946-1954), 2:464-532. Robert Bellarmine’s Disputationes (1581-1593) 31Roberti Bellarmini, Disputationes de controversiis christianæ fidei adversus hujus temporis hæreticos (Paris: Tri-Adelphorvm, 1608). and Francisco Ribera’s commentary on the Book of Revelation (1591) 32Francisci Riberæ, In sacram b. Iohannis Apostoli, & Euangelistæ Apocalypsin Commentarij (Salamanca: Excudebat Petrus Lassus, 1591). proposed that those apocalyptic entities would appear on the scene only in the far-distant future. By contrast, Luis del Alcazar’s exposition of the book of Revelation (1614) 33Ludovici ab Alcasar, Vestigatio arcani sensus in Apocalypsi (Antuerpia: Apud Ioannem Keerbergium, 1614). shifted the same entities back to the days of the apostles. Surprisingly, both futurism and preterism were welcomed into Protestant and Evangelical circles, becoming eventually their own highly influential schools of prophetic interpretation. So, the prophetic element of Scripture was largely restricted either to the distant future or to the faraway past, losing therefore much of its contemporary relevance.GOP 293.3

    But no other post-Reformation hermeneutical alternative undermined so radically the sola Scriptura principle as higher criticism (also known as the historical-critical method) derived from the Enlightenment. The studies of such German rationalist theologians as Johann S. Semler, 34Johann S. Semler, Abhandlung von freier Untersuchung des Canon, 4 vols. (Halle: Carl Hermann Hemmerde, 1771-1775). Julius Wellhausen, 35Julius Wellhausen, Prolegomena zur Geschichte Israels, 2nd ed. (Berlin: Georg Reimer, 1883); published in English as Prolegomena to the History of Israel, trans. J. Sutherland Black and Allan Menzies (Edinburgh: Adam & Charles Black, 1885). Ernst Troeltsch, 36Ernst Troeltsch, “Ueber historische und dogmatische Methode in der Theologie” (1898), in idem, Gesammelte Schriften (Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr, 1912), 2:729-753. and later on Rudolf Bultmann, 37Rudolf Bultmann, Neues Testament und Mythologie. Das Problem der Entmythologisierung der neutestamentlichen Verkündigung (Munich: Chr. Kaiser, 1941); Rudolf Bultmann et al., Kerygma and Myth: A Theological Debate, ed. Hans W.Bartsch (New York: Harper & Row, 1961). questioned the historicity of Genesis 1-11, denied that Moses was the author of the Pentateuch, rejected the predictive dimension of Bible prophecy, and swept away the miracles of the Bible. The Bible was considered only an ancient-cultural mosaic and, consequently, the sola Scriptura principle was viewed as a naive way for credulous believers to study the Bible. Arthur T. Pierson pointed out that like Roman Catholicism, higher criticism “practically removes the Word of God from the common people by assuming that only scholars can interpret it; and, while Rome puts a priest between a man and the Word, criticism puts an educated expositor between the believer and his Bible.” 38Arthur T. Pierson, “Antagonism to the Bible,” Our Hope 15 (January 1909): 475. Placing human reason as the foundation of all else, the historical-critical method replaces sola Scriptura with sola reason.GOP 294.1

    Another major hermeneutical trend that challenged the sola Scriptura principle was dispensational futurism, much indebted to John Nelson Darby (1800-1882). 39The Collected Writings of J. N. Darby, 34 vols., ed. by William Kelly (London: G. Morrish, n.d.). Volume 1 was titled The Works of John Nelson Darby. Cf. Larry V. Crutchfield, The Origins of Dispensationalism: The Darby Factor (Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1992); Paul Boyer, When Time Shall Be No More: Prophecy Belief in Modern American Culture (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1992), 86-90. With a strong literal reading of the Bible, Darby ended up separating the church from Israel; dividing sacred history into several distinct dispensations; and proposing a pretribulation rapture of the church prior to Christ’s second coming. By breaking the unity of the Bible, the sola Scriptura motif, with its corollary principles of typology and analogy of Scripture, could no longer be applied consistently to the whole Bible. 40See Hans K. LaRondelle, The Israel of God in Prophecy: Principles of Prophetic Interpretation (Berrien Springs, Mich.: Andrews University Press, 1983). GOP 294.2

    Thus, in the second half of the nineteenth century, Protestant-Evangelical Christianity was being challenged by the Roman Catholic futurist and preterist schools of prophetic interpretation, the liberal historical-critical method, and Darby’s dispensational futurism. Each of these used a human principle in place of the Bible, thus distorting or even destroying the sola Scriptura principle. During the twentieth century several socio-scientific hermeneutics would appear on the scene, challenging even further the sola Scriptura dictum. 41An insightful historical overview of biblical interpretations is provided in William W. Klein, Craig L. Blomberg, and Robert L. Hubbard, Jr., Introduction to Biblical Interpretation, rev. and updated (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2004), 23-101. For a survey of the theological consequences of such interpretations, see Stanley J. Grenz and Roger E. Olson, 20th Century Theology: God & the World in a Transitional Age (Downers Grove, Ill.: IVP Academic, 1992). GOP 295.1

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