Pastoral Musings

Joel and I agree that the literal sense is the literary sense.

I hold to a more literal view of some passages than Joel does.  I take the Genesis Creation account to be a literal description of what happened in the creation.  Joel does not.

I think both of us believe that we take it literally.  I, because I believe it is a historical narrative.  Joel, because he believes that it is another genre.

I think that it is obvious that the term “literal” in reference to either of these hermeneutics is not the best term.  Many use the term grammatical-historical.  I understand the reasoning behind that.  The grammatical structure, including genre, determines our interpretation of a passage of Scripture.  We should also keep it in its historical context.

I have a feeling that Joel agrees with me, though I do not know if he would claim to hold to the grammatical-historical view.

My question is this, is grammatical-historical a good term to use in regard to a literal hermeneutic?

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