In one sense, believing the Bible contains its own hermeneutic is other-planetly. It is pre-critical, pre-enlightenment, neither modern nor post-modern. The Endarkenment (:-)) brought with its rationalism a hermeneutical revolution that humanized the Bible and made it like any other book. However, it is not like any other book, at least in one very crucial sense – behind its various human authors is one divine author. So when the Bible interprets the Bible it is doing so infallibly and, as a result, establishing infallible principles of interpretation revealed by God himself! The only infallible interpreter of the Holy Scripture is the Holy Spirit in the Holy Scripture – so said John Owen. When the Bible comments upon itself (which it does in various ways in both testaments), we need to listen and emulate its methods. There is intertextuality occuring in both testaments. There are various allusions throughout Scripture to itself. These things are so because of divine authorship, something an Enlightenement-tainted hermeneutic does not take into account, at least not properly.
Dr. Richard Barcellos is associate professor of New Testament Studies. He received a B.S. from California State University, Fresno, an M.Div. from The Master’s Seminary, and a Th.M. and Ph.D. from Whitefield Theological Seminary. Dr. Barcellos is pastor of Grace Reformed Baptist Church, Palmdale, CA. He is author of Trinity & Creation, The Covenant of Works, and Getting the Garden Right. He has contributed articles to various journals and is a member of ETS.
Courses taught for CBTS: New Testament Introduction, Biblical Hermeneutics, Biblical Theology I, Biblical Theology II.
