Revised and Expanded

THE

HERMENEUTICAL SPIRAL

A Comprehensive Introduction to Biblical Interpretation

Grant R. Osborne

An imprint of InterVarsity Press

Downers Grove, Illinois

InterVarsity Press

P.O. Box 1400, Downers Grove, IL 60515–1426

World Wide Web: www.ivpress.com

E-mail: mail@ivpress.com

Second Edition ©2006 by Grant R. Osborne. First Edition ©1991 by Grant R. Osborne.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from InterVarsity Press.

InterVarsity Press® is the bookpublishing division of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship/USA®, a student movement active on campus at hundreds of universities, colleges and schools of nursing in the United States of America, and a member movement of the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students. For information about local and regional activities, write Public Relations Dept., InterVarsity Christian Fellowship/USA, 6400 Schroeder Rd., P.O. Box 7895, Madison, WI 537077895, or visit the IVCF website at <www.intervarsity.org>.

All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®. NIV®. Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved.

Design: Cindy Kiple

Images: Kiss Botond/istockphoto.com

ISBN-10: 0-8308-2826-5

ISBN-13: 978-0-8308-2826-5

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Osborne, Grant R.

The hermeneutical spiral: a comprehensive introduction to biblical

interpretation / Grant R. Osborne.—2nd ed.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN-13: 978-0-8308-2826-5 (pbk.: alk. paper)

ISBN-10: 0-8308-2826-5 (pbk.: alk. paper)

1. Bible—Hermeneutics. I. Title.

BS476.O79 2006

220.601—dc22

2006020865

To Amber and Susanne

Our gift from God

Our reward from him

(Psalm 127:3)

Contents

Preface to the Second Edition

Acknowledgments

Abbreviations

Introduction

Hermeneutics and Intended Meaning

Interpretation and the Problem of Distance

The Inspiration and Authority of Scripture

Meaning Is Genre-Dependent

The Simplicity and Clarity of Scripture

The Unity and Diversity of Scripture

The Analogy of Scripture

The Place of the Reader in Interpretation

Expository Preaching

Conclusion

PART 1 GENERAL HERMENEUTICS

1 Context

The Historical Context

The Logical Context

1. Studying the whole: Charting a book

2. Studying the parts: Diagramming the paragraph

Rhetorical or Compositional Patterns

2 Grammar

The Preliminary Task: Establishing the Text

1. External criteria

2. Internal criteria

Grammatical Analysis of the Text

1. The historical development

2. The verb system

3. The noun system

4. Prepositions, particles and clauses

Exegetical Procedures

3 Semantics

Semantic Fallacies

1. The lexical fallacy

2. The root fallacy

3. Misuse of etymology

4. Misuse of subsequent meaning

5. The one-meaning fallacy

6. Misuse of parallels

7. The disjunctive fallacy

8. The word fallacy

9. Ignoring the context

Basic Semantic Theory...

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About The Hermeneutical Spiral: A Comprehensive Introduction to Biblical Interpretation

In this newly revised and expanded edition of the 1993 Christianity Today Critics’ Choice Award winner in theology and biblical studies, Grant Osborne provides seminary students and working pastors with the full set of tools they need to move from sound exegesis to the development of biblical and systematic theologies and to the preparation of sound, biblical sermons.

Osborne contends that hermeneutics is a spiral from text to context—a movement between the horizon of the text and the horizon of the reader that spirals nearer and nearer toward the intended meaning of the text and its significance for today.

He develops his thesis in each of three sections: the first covering general hermeneutics (grammar, semantics, syntax, backgrounds), the second covering hermeneutics and genre, and the third covering applied hermeneutics. Along the way, he offers assessments of recent developments from redaction criticism to reader response criticism. In two appendixes he also addresses the contemporary philosophical challenges to fixed meanings in texts and discusses the implications of this debate for biblical authority.

Well-established as the standard evangelical work in the field since its first publication in 1991, this updated edition of The Hermeneutical Spiral meets the needs of a new generation of students and pastors. General revisions have been made throughout, new chapters have been added on Old Testament law and the use of the Old Testament in the New, and the bibliography has been thoroughly updated.

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