Utilizing evangelical, rabbinic, and literary critical hermeneutical methods as dialogue partners, I will suggest in this article five emphases that distinguish a Pentecostal approach to Scripture: (1) Pentecostal readings are narrative rather than propositional. (2) They are dynamic rather than static. (3) They are experience-based. (4) They seek encounter more than understanding. (5) They are pragmatic, emphasizing transformation and application.
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See Scott Ellington, ‘Pentecostalism and the Authority of Scripture’, Journal of Pentecostal Theology 9 (1996), pp. 16-38.
Robert P. Menzies, ‘Jumping Off the Postmodern Bandwagon’, Pneuma 16.1 (1994), pp. 115-20, and Timothy B. Cargal, ‘Beyond the Fundamental-Modernist Controversy: Pentecostals and Hermeneutics in a Postmodern Age’, Pneuma 15.2 (1993), pp. 163-87.
Bradley Noel, Pentecostal and Postmodern Hermeneutics: Comparisons and Contemporary Impact (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2010), p. 9.
Gordon D. Fee, New Testament Exegesis: A Handbook for Students and Pastors (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 3rd edn, 2002), pp. 31-32, and Douglas Stuart, Old Testament Exegesis: A Handbook for Students and Pastors, (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 3rd edn, 2001), pp. 24-25.
John Goldingay, ‘Biblical Story and the Way it Shapes Our Story’, The Journal for the European Pentecostal Theological Association 17 (1997), pp. 5-15 (6).
Kenneth J. Archer, A Pentecostal Hermeneutic: Spirit, Scripture and Community (Cleveland, TN: CPT Press, 2009), p. 205.
Stephen Wylen, The Seventy Faces of Torah: The Jewish Way of Reading the Sacred Scriptures (New York: Paulist Press, 2005), p. 42.
Norman Cohen, The Way Into Torah (Woodstock, VT: Jewish Light Publishers, 2000), p. 54.
Michael Fishbane, The Exegetical Imagination: On Jewish Thought and Theology (London: Harvard University Press, 1998), p. 18.
Roger Stronstad, ‘Pentecostal Experience and Hermeneutics’, Paraclete 26.1 (winter 1992), pp. 14-30.
Mark Stibbe, Times of Refreshing (London: Marshall Pickering, 1995), p. 5. I am indebted to Mark Cartledge for drawing my attention to Stibbe’s description. Encountering the Spirit: The Charismatic Tradition (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2006), p. 128.
John Christopher Thomas, ‘Women, Pentecostals and the Bible: An Experiment in Pentecostal Hermeneutics’, Journal of Pentecostal Theology 5 (1994), pp. 41-56 (45).
Andrew Davies, ‘What Does it Mean to Read the Bible as a Pentecostal?’, Journal of Pentecostal Theology 18.2 (2009), pp. 216-29 (221).
Davies, ‘What Does it Mean to Read the Bible as a Pentecostal?’, p. 224.
Mark Powell, What is Narrative Criticism? (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1990), p. 10.
Yairah Amit, Reading Biblical Narratives: Literary Criticism and the Hebrew Bible (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2001), p. 100.
Goldingay, Models for Scripture (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994), pp. 24-25.
Davies, ‘What Does it Mean to Read the Bible as a Pentecostal?’, p. 221.
Yong, ‘Reading Scripture and Nature’, p. 5. Jacqueline Grey also emphasizes this pragmatic bent to Pentecostal readings: ‘The complete disinterest and ignorance of the historical context of the passage by Pentecostal readers points to an approach that reads texts for pragmatic purposes – a purpose which is aimed at the transformation of the contemporary reader’ (p. 91).
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Utilizing evangelical, rabbinic, and literary critical hermeneutical methods as dialogue partners, I will suggest in this article five emphases that distinguish a Pentecostal approach to Scripture: (1) Pentecostal readings are narrative rather than propositional. (2) They are dynamic rather than static. (3) They are experience-based. (4) They seek encounter more than understanding. (5) They are pragmatic, emphasizing transformation and application.
| All Time | Past 365 days | Past 30 Days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abstract Views | 373 | 43 | 6 |
| Full Text Views | 106 | 7 | 0 |
| PDF Views & Downloads | 85 | 16 | 0 |