background image
9
It was this attempt to ascertain the historical understanding of the biblical author and his times
that freed Luther, and other Reformers, from a reliance based solely upon the opinions of the
church fathers. This new interpretive tool--historical understanding--formed the backbone for
all subsequent Protestant hermeneutical methodologies. Luthers emphasis on the historical
understanding of the Bible, however, was not done merely to break with Catholic church
tradition. On the contrary, for Luther, the historical understanding was the means by which Christ
was best understood; for Luther, Christ was found in every book of the Bible. While other
Reformers, such as Calvin, Zwingli, and Illyricus,
6
did not totally follow Luthers new approach
to the Bible--especially in regards to his Christological emphasis--they too emphasized the
importance of the literal sense of the biblical text as first conveyed to the original audience. Thus,
they also placed a heavy emphasis upon an historical interpretation of the Bible.

This emphasis of the Reformers on the historical interpretation eventually turned into what we
know today as historical criticism and the tools of the historical critical approach.
7
This approach
stresses that a biblical passage must be understood in light of at least three factors: 1) the syntax
of the words used; 2) the context in which the words are found; and 3) and the underlying
historical setting behind the words. Historical criticism is a book-driven--or better, document-
driven--method of Bible interpretation that assumes everyone is reading similar texts as they do
their study. It relies on the document of the Bible itself as well as the supporting documents
outside of the Bible: Bible dictionaries, grammars, concordances, commentaries, etc. Without the
sameness of the mass-produced printed Bible and its supporting documents, the ability to do
good historical criticism is severely limited. Thus, historical criticism--as well as most of the
other more modern "criticisms"--owes itself theologically and philosophically to the
Reformation and Enlightenment, but technologically to Gutenberg and his invention.

The Reformers desire to seek the historicity of the biblical text was rooted in a strong belief in
the authoritativeness of the Word of God that they were studying. They in no way intended to
undermine the Bibles authority through their emphasis upon an historical interpretation of the
Bible. For them it was still the universal authority in all fields of knowledge. Unfortunately, this
understanding of the authority of the Bible was not held by everyone by the end of the Post-
Reformation seventeenth century, a century that once again marked a turning point in the
Western worlds understanding of the Bible.
8
For the rationalists of the seventeenth century, and
beyond, it was neither Scripture nor the church traditions that reigned supreme. Now it was
rational thought in all areas of scientific, historical, and philosophical inquiry that was the sole
authority. Individuals like Johannes Kepler, René Descartes, Baruch Spinoza, and John Locke
challenged not only the hermeneutical methodologies of the day but also the very authority of the
Bible as well.
6. Illyricus is especially significant since his Clavis Scripturae Sacrae (1567) was the first hermeneutics text that, according to
Robert Kolb, "shaped the science of textual exposition for centuries to come. New editions appeared until the second quarter of
the eighteenth century" (1998:191).
7. Historical criticism is also known as the grammatico-historical method. Both phrases--historical-critical and grammatico-
historical--fall under the rubric of biblical criticism: "the study which attempts to determine the true meaning of the Bible by
using techniques applied to other written documents" (Erickson 1986:21).
8. See especially Klaus Scholder (1990).