A Guide to Full Exegesis

[Dr. Henry, President of the AOCI]

Guide for Full Exegesis

1. Many times, especially in the poetic sections, a corruption will be insoluble: the wording may not make much sense in the Hebrew as it stands, but you cannot figure out a convincing alternative. In these cases, you should leave the received text alone. Your task is to reconstruct as far as possible the text as originally inspired by God, not to rewrite it.
2. Hebrew words do not have single meaning(s), and there are differences between a word and a concept. A single Hebrew word rarely corresponds precisely to a single English word but may range in meaning through all or parts of several different English words. Translation, therefore always involves selection when preparing a tentative translation to your reconstructed Tex.
3. When you read your Hebrew text in order to check the correspondence of text and translation, try to reproduce rather than mask the ambiguity in your English translation. Especially if your passage contain words or phrases that originally were genuinely ambiguous. A good translation is one that creates the same general impression for the hearer as the original would, without distorting the particular content conveyed.
4. When you perform correct exegesis, you must research the (historical) background, (social) setting, and geographical setting. Also, seek the date for the events described.
5. Arriving at a precise date is not always possible. One must be especially cautious in using secondary literature, since a scholar’s critical methodology largely determines to what extent he or she will tend to consider portions of the Bible as “authentic.” If a date cannot be suggested, suggest a date before which the passage could not have occurred or been composed called (terminus a quo) and the date by which the passage surely must have already taken place or been composed called the (the terminus ad quem).
6. Dating prophetic passages precisely is often difficult or impossible. In most cases the only way to proceed is to try to link the message of the passage with historical circumstances known from Old Testament historical portions and other ancient Near Eastern historical sources. In dating any passage, the context and content of the passage, including its vocabulary, are your main guides to date.
7. Any biblical passage whose limits have been properly identified will have a self-consistent logic made up of meaningful thought patterns. Try to identify the patterns by looking for such key features as central and pivotal words, parallelisms, chiasms, inclusios (also called sandwiching), resumptions, and other repetition and progression. The key to patterns are most often repetition and progression.
8. If the passage is poetical, analyze by watching for epiphora (repetition of final sounds or words) and other patterns that frequently appear in poetry. Identify any intentional instances of assonance (repetition or juxtaposition of similar sounds), paronomasia (word play, including puns), figura etymologica (variation on word roots, often including names), and other poetic devices. However, do not look for rhyme.
9. Because so many Hebrew words have similar endings – most feminine singulars ending in (ah), most feminine plurals ending in (oth), most masculine plurals ending in (im), rhyme was too easy and would have been considered “cheap”. Other poetic devices were far better tests of a poet’s skill and indicated to an audience quality in poetic expression in a way that rhyme simply could not.
10. Morphology refers to meaning-affecting parts of words, such as suffixes and prefixes and orthography refers to spelling style. All major texts of the Hebrew Bible contain an orthography characteristic of the Persian period (postexilic), since the texts selected for official status by the rabbis of the first century A.D. were apparently copies from the Persian period.
11. A correct understanding of the (grammar) is essential to a proper interpretation of the passage. Are any grammatical points in doubt? Could any sentences, clauses, or phrases be read differently if the grammar were construed differently? Pay attention also to (ellipsis), asyndeton, prostaxis, parataxis, anacoluthon, and other special grammatical features that relate to interpretation
12. In conducting your exegesis, you should explain all words and concepts that are not obvious. There is a difference between a word and a concept. A given concept may be expressed by many different words or wordings. For example, the parable of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10. Even though the word “love” is not there, Jesus teaches us what it means to love neighbor as self. It is important to realize that your purpose in analyzing the lexical data is to understand the individual concepts of your passage.
13. In preparing a full exegesis, you should conduct a word study of the most crucial words or wordings and present a summary of your procedures and findings to the reader relegated to footnotes. You should not neglect the specific theological meaning(s) of words or wordings in considering the various ranges of meaning
14. In order for the exegesis to be your work and not merely a (mechanical) compendium of others’ views, it is wise to do your own thinking and to arrive at your own conclusions as much as possible prior to investigating what others have said about a passage.
15. Exegesis seeks to not only determine what the text meant, but what it means now. Subjectivity is the primary enemy of good application. When people think that they can derive from a passage an application that is somehow relevant to them but not to others, or is somehow unique to one passage but not even comparable to the applications of closely similar passages, the probability of logical consistency is reduced and the likelihood of accuracy is therefore threatened.

[Christopher R. Dockrey]

Please keep these articles coming, Dr. Henry. I cannot tell you how much value I believe this is for any of us influenced by the Pentecostal tradition.

I think we should listen to our critics, not because they are all correct about everything, nor because all their criticisms are delivered in the right spirit, but because they happen to be somewhat correct when they point out that we have not valued education as a movement. Certainly the tide has turned considerably in the last 50 years, but there are still some very anti-intellectual sentiments among us. I know because I am, in part, a product of those sentiments, and have felt the sting of indifference when I have gone against that grain. That's part of the reason why articles like this, particularly coming from a Pentecostal preacher, are very encouraging to me.

[Dr. Henry, President of the AOCI]

Your welcome brother Chris. I will post more articles on this subject. As a Spirit Filled Clergy man and a Pentecostal Theologian, I am driven to provide scholarship to what so many have called in the past...."A movement without theology" or "A denomination without the Education".

Your comments are appreciated and help me to give this ministry what may benefit its members. Thanks again and God bless you brother Christopher.

[Christopher R. Dockrey]

Dr. Henry, thank you very much for this. These are the kinds of articles I really enjoy reading, and would like to see more of. I think articles like this are necessary for challenging us to a higher standard of interpretation and therefore application. Here is a quote I think we can all benefit from:

"Subjectivity is the primary enemy of good application."

I must admit I am a bit of a novice about many of the finer points of exegesis, but I am not content to stay that way. As someone who regularly teaches the Word, I have an understanding of the greater degree of judgment we teachers are subject to. To the extent that we have the ability to understand and rightly divide the Word of God, I believe we are strongly obliged to do so.