As I have been re-reading N.T. Wright's Fresh Perspectives on Paul. I've noticed that Wright's erroneous conclusions regarding the doctrine of Justification, imputed righteousness and his particularly impotent 'good news' that Jesus is Lord not Caesar, have their genesis in a fatally flawed hermeneutic.
Wright on several occasions discusses what he calls "the governing narrative" and its impact upon his reading of scripture. This so-called "governing narrative" is comprised of all sorts of bits of historical data and ideas gleaned from extra-biblical sources including Dead Sea Scroll material from the Qumran communities.
The fatal error in this approach is that it gives interpretive governing authority to extra Biblical material that has been cobbled together into this 'governing narrative'. Ultimately, this approach puts human subjectivity on the interpretive throne and will allow for, as it already has, all kinds of interpretive mischief. For which two scholars are going to agree as to which data should and shouldn't be included in the 'governing narrative'? Biblical interpretation will no longer depend on what the scriptures say but only on what the 'governing narrative' says that it is saying. In the end the 'governing narrative' will become nothing more that a purely political and subjective playground that will be used for all types of fanciful and false Biblical interpretations. And as Wright has so eloquently demonstrated the first doctrine to get thrown out is the good news of the forgiveness of sins in Jesus Christ and His righteousness imputed to justified sinners.
Lutheran dogmatician Francis Pieper exposed the dangers of this hermeneutical approach long before N.T. Wright came on the scene. Said Pieper,
Exegesis loses its theological character if the exegete does not adhere throughout to the “Scriptura Scripturam interpretatur” and “Scriptura sua luce radiat.” No extra-Biblical material, philological or historical, may determine the exegesis. That holds true particularly with regard to historical circumstances. Interpreting the words of Scripture according to a “historical background” not furnished by Scripture itself but, wholly or in part, by contemporary secular writers, is false exegesis. All the historical background necessary for the correct understanding of Scripture is given by Scripture itself. (Christian Dogmatics, Vol 1. Page 101)
Or as Luther pointed out so eloquently, men will always be inclined, “in their perverse desire to reach false heights, like blind idiots, to take no notice of the divine simplicity of the words of Christ.”
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