EXEGESIS When used about the Bible, what is the meaning of: Eisegesis, Exegesis, Hermeneutics ?

What Is Eisegesis ?
Eisegesis [ < Greek eis- (into) + hgeisthai (to lead). (See 'exegesis'.)] Eisegesis is what's being done when someone interprets the Bible according to notions that were born outside of the Bible. It's when we read stuff into Scripture "What is the difference between exegesis and eisegesis?" Answer: Exegesis and eisegesis are two conflicting approaches in Bible study. Exegesis is the exposition or explanation of a text based on a careful, objective analysis. The word exegesis literally means to lead out of. That means that the interpreter is led to his conclusions by following the text. The opposite approach to Scripture is eisegesis, which is the interpretation of a passage based on a subjective, non-analytical reading. The word eisegesis literally means to lead into, which means the interpreter injects his own ideas into the text, making it mean whatever he wants. Obviously, only exegesis does justice to the text. Eisegesis is a mishandling of the text and often leads to a misinterpretation. Exegesis is concerned with discovering the true meaning of the text, respecting its grammar, syntax, and setting. Eisegesis is concerned only with making a point, even at the expense of the meaning of words. Second Timothy 2:15 commands us to use exegetical methods: Present yourself to God as one approved, a workman who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth. An honest student of the Bible will be an exegete, allowing the text to speak for itself. Eisegesis easily lends itself to error, as the would-be interpreter attempts to align the text with his own preconceived notions. Exegesis allows us to agree with the Bible; eisegesis seeks to force the Bible to agree with us. The process of exegesis involves 1) observation: what does the passage say? 2) interpretation: what does the passage mean? 3) correlation: how does the passage relate to the rest of the Bible? and 4) application: how should this passage affect my life? Eisegesis, on the other hand, involves 1) imagination: what idea do I want to present? 2) exploration: what Scripture passage seems to fit with my idea? and 3) application: what does my idea mean? Notice that, in eisegesis, there is no examination of the words of the text or their relationship to each other, no cross-referencing with related passages, and no real desire to understand the actual meaning. Scripture serves only as a prop to the interpreters idea.

To illustrate, lets use both approaches in the treatment of one passage: 2 Chronicles 27:1-2 Jotham was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem sixteen years. . . . He did what was right in the eyes of the LORD, just as his father Uzziah had done, but unlike him he did not enter the temple of the LORD. EISEGESIS First, the interpreter decides on a topic. Today, its The Importance of Church Attendance. The interpreter reads 2 Chronicles 27:1-2 and sees that King Jotham was a good king, just like his father Uzziah had been, except for one thing: he didnt go to the temple! This passage seems to fit his idea, so he uses it. The resulting sermon deals with the need for passing on godly values from one generation to the next. Just because King Uzziah went to the temple every week didnt mean that his son would continue the practice. In the same way, many young people today tragically turn from their parents training, and church attendance drops off. The sermon ends with a question: How many blessings did Jotham fail to receive, simply because he neglected church? Certainly, there is nothing wrong with preaching about church attendance or the transmission of values. And a cursory reading of 2 Chronicles 27:1-2 seems to support that passage as an apt illustration. However, the above interpretation is totally wrong. For Jotham not to go to the temple was not wrong; in fact, it was very good, as the proper approach to the passage will show. EXEGESIS First, the interpreter reads the passage and, to fully understand the context, he reads the histories of both Uzziah and Jotham (2 Chronicles 26-27; 2 Kings 15:1-6, 32-38). In his observation, he discovers that King Uzziah was a good king who nevertheless disobeyed the Lord when he went to the temple and offered incense on the altarsomething only a priest had the right to do (2 Chronicles 26:16-20). Uzziahs pride and his contamination of the temple resulted in his having leprosy until the day he died (2 Chronicles 26:21). Needing to know why Uzziah spent the rest of his life in isolation, the interpreter studies Leviticus 13:46 and does some research on leprosy. Then he compares the use of illness as a punishment in other passages, such as 2 Kings 5:27; 2 Chronicles 16:12; and 21:12-15. By this time, the exegete understands something important: when the passage says Jotham did not enter the temple of the LORD, it means he did not did not repeat his fathers mistake. Uzziah had proudly usurped the priests office; Jotham was more obedient. The resulting sermon might deal with the Lords discipline of His children, with the blessing of total obedience, or with our need to learn from the mistakes of the past rather than repeat them. Of course, exegesis takes more time than eisegesis. But if we are to be those unashamed workmen who correctly handle the word of truth, then we must take the time to truly understand the text. Exegesis is the only way.

What Is Exegesis ?
Exegesis [ < Greek exgeisthai (to interpret) < ex- (out) + hgeisthai (to lead). Related to English 'seek'.] To interpret a text by way of thorough analysis of its content. In its most basic Biblerelevant meaning, exegesis means finding out what the Spirit originally was saying in the Bible passage through its author. Exegesis is what comes out of the Bible, as against what gets read into it. (Of course, the ways we use to find out from the Bible are often merely ways to put something into it 'between the lines'. That's really eisegesis in a Halloween costume.) In a more theological setting, exegesis means what comes from the use of certain methods of studying the Bible. Just about every imaginable method already has a name, and there are all sorts of mixes, but the main types are :

historical (using the form, word choices, editing work, historical context, main themes, and so on, to find what it meant back when it was written or when it happened), canonical (treating the Bible as an whole document designed to be what a specific community lives by), symbolic/allegorical (figuring out what each character and event represents), rational (thinking it through using logic and deductive technique).

Most Bible students use most of the methods in their own way at some time, even if they don't think they do. All of them are often helpful, sometimes not at all helpful, and occasionally downright deceptive. It's best to see all methods as tools for the Bible student to use prayerfully, rather than as rules to follow or conclusions ('scholarly consensus') that one must accept. There are many angles and facets to most passages of Scripture, and the different methods can help you get at more of them. If you aren't doing some kind of exegesis, you are not finding out what the writings themselves are saying. But what good is knowing eternal truth if it doesn't matter to you? Thus, exegesis is just one important step in studying the Bible; there also needs to be hermeneutics (see below). "Exegesis...is an act of love. It means loving the one who speaks the words enough to want to get the words right. It is respecting the words enough to use every means we have to get the words right. Exegesis is loving God enough to stop and listen carefully." -- Eugene Peterson, in *Theology Today*, April 1999, p.10

What Is Hermeneutics ?
hermeneutics [ < Greek hermeneu(te)s (interpreter). ] The science of interpretation of a story or text, or the methods used in that science. For Bible study, hermeneutics is about the ways you discover meaning in the Bible for your life and your era, faithfully taking the original intent into today's world. The Bible is not meant to be a lazy read; when you read it, you use ways to figure out what it means and how to live it. There's a science and art to that: hermeneutics. (There's a page on this site that has more on doing this.) Hermeneutics is a kind of discernment process, a way of mining for truth to live by. 3

Discernment is a task that's best not done alone, but by a Spirit-led community that lives and breathes this Biblical Word. Such a community lives a hermeneutic of the Bible, and the testimony of each person in it is a living viability apologetic for the God of that Bible. However, interpretation is not something you can just slough off to the Spirit-led community and leave it there. It is your responsibility, your task, to shape your faith through the Word, to help the community shape its own faith through the Word. It is a hermeneutical responsibility to be taken with the utmost of diligence. There's a lot of talk nowadays about "hermeneutic distance", which means that you are not actually in the life and times of Scriptural happenings and people, and even if you were, you may not be in the role you think you would be. The part of it most talked about is the fact that as times change, so does the setting for what God is trying to say to you through the Bible. Our era is not the same as Jesus', or even your father's. It's a hot topic now because so much is changing so fast. Churches make far too little of this, as if unchangingness is what counts, when in fact change also counts, because no learning or growth happens without change. Non-believers and 'liberal-church' believers make far too much of it, as if the more things change the less they stay the same, and when in fact most of the core matters of life change more in form than in substance. Each era develops its own set of likenesses to the era of Jesus.

Basic Rules for New Testament Exegesis

For whatever reasons, God chose three languages in which to preserve his revelation to man: Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek. To understand the meaning of the Bible for our times, it is necessary that someone knows intimately the languages of Scripture and is able to interpret them for the rest of us. The process of interpreting Scripture that is, drawing out of the text its meaning is called exegesis. Languages have rules. When one violates the rules of language, the end product is gibberish and confusion. Much Bible interpretation these days is subjective and intuitive (especially among Charismatics), agenda driven (Liberation, Feminist and Black theologies), and otherwise politicized. Because the text as it stands does not naturally yield a meaning that serves the interests of certain groups, theologians representing these groups often perform eisogesis (reading into the text what one wants it to mean) rather than exegesis. Doing editorial violence to the text of Scripture denigrates the Bibles authority. If the writing down of those thoughts that eventually became Scripture was an inspired process (cf. II Timothy 3:16; II Peter 1:21), then robbing them of their intended meaning and imposing upon them a false meaning is an act of defiance against the God that inspired them. This is to be expected of a natural, unconverted mind for the carnal mind is enmity against God (Romans 8:7). It should not be expected of the mind yielded to God.

The rules of exegesis

Gordon D. Fee, in his New Testament Exegesis, p 27, states simply, Exegesisanswers the question, What did the biblical author mean? It has to do both with what he said (the content itself) and why he said it at any given point (the literary context). Furthermore, exegesis is

primarily concerned with intentionality: What did the author intend his original readers to understand? Before we can determine what a given text might mean for us today, we must establish what it meant for its original audience. This is the process of exegesis. In this article, we will lay out the fundamental rules, of which there are eight. In future articles, we will elaborate on each one from a nuts & bolts perspective. The rules listed are taken directly from Prof. Fees excellent book (p. 32), mentioned in the paragraph above.

Rule No. 1: Survey the historical context in general.

Rule No. 2: Confirm the limits of the passage. Rule No. 3: Become thoroughly acquainted with your paragraph or pericope (see article No. 1 in this series for a discussion of pericopes).

Rule No. 4: Analyze sentence structures and syntactical relationships.

Rule No. 5: Establish the text. Rule No. 6: Analyze the grammar. Rule No. 7: Analyze significant words. Rule No. 8: Research the historical-cultural background.

Literary Genre
Whenever one is doing a technical analysis of a passage of Scripture, the above eight rules should ideally be followed. Leaving one out can be exegetically disastrous, resulting in all manner of erroneous interpretations. (This does not mean that it is necessary to follow these steps for every article or sermon. But the process of sound exegesis should be behind any presentation that is made.) Not only is it important to follow these basic rules, but one must also consider the nature of the documents under scrutiny. The New Testament comes to us in four literary genres (types of literature). They are as follows: 1. 2. 3. 4. Epistles (Letters). Gospels (pericopes and individual narratives or teachings). Acts (shorter narratives forming a long one, plus speeches). Revelation (visions woven together to form an apocalyptic narrative).

Each of these literary genres requires addition exegetical consideration. Yet all of the steps do not apply equally to all New Testament passages. Some passages, for example, present no major textual problems; others are seriously problematic.

Completing the process

Fee recommends four additional stops to complete the process of exegesis: 1. 2. 3. 4. Consider the broader biblical and theological contexts. Consult secondary literature. Provide if one is able a finished translation. Write your analysis.

Those who write for peer review i.e. in learned journals are often careful to follow this process rigorously. As with all understanding within the Church, there tends to exist three levels: the scholarly, the pastoral, and the lay. Pastoral and lay levels are more often concerned with denominational fidelity than with objective accuracy. Scholars, to be true scholars, must rise above the constraints of denominational orthodoxy and perform exegesis that is not designed to confirm already-held beliefs. If a given scholar begins his exegesis with the idea that the denomination that sponsors him holds a certain belief on this or that subject, and then sets out to prove that is true, he has abandoned his scholarly integrity. He has lost objectivity. He has become a mere agenda-driven propagandist. The goal of a true exegete of Scripture must be to allow the examined passage or pericope to yield up its intended meaning, not to impose meaning upon it. By following the steps listed in this article, this is more likely to happen than not. At the same time, it goes without saying that spiritual things are spiritually discerned (I Corinthians 2:14). How we approach the text of Scripture makes a difference in how our process of analysis turns out. We will discuss this further in other articles in this series. Recommended Reading: New Testament Exegesis by Gordon D. Fee, Westminster/John Knox Press, Louisville, KY, Revised edition, 1993.