After Class Podcast 3.14 - When Bacon is Bad
6 snips
Apr 6, 2020 Explore the rich history of biblical interpretation through various lenses, from the quadriga method of early church struggles to the influences of Renaissance and Reformation. Discover how fundamentalism emerged as a reaction to liberalism, shaped by Baconian and Cartesian methods. The hosts discuss the pitfalls of rigid doctrines and the implications of literalism, premillennialism, and young-earth creationism. They advocate for unity on clear doctrines while allowing openness on debatable issues, emphasizing the importance of reading Scripture on its own terms.
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Early Church's Flexible Hermeneutic
- Early church used a dynamic fourfold interpretation (literal, allegorical, moral, anagogical) for Scripture.
- That approach accepted genre diversity and avoided rigid literalism that arose later.
Reformation Spawned Historical Criticism
- The Reformation and Renaissance democratized Scripture by putting it in the vernacular and prompting readers to ask interpretive questions.
- Historical criticism grew from this shift to read ancient texts on their own terms.
Liberalism Made Doctrine Symbolic
- Liberalism reframed Christianity as a symbolic system compatible with modern science to retain cultural credibility.
- This move often allegorized doctrines to avoid conflicts with scientific findings.
