I was doing some reading the other day and came across a passage in the Hobbit, and I found it particularly helpful when thinking about interpreting the Bible. In their first interaction Bilbo and Gandalf greet one another. Allow me to provide the passage for you:
“Good morning!” said Bilbo, and he meant it. The sun was shining, and the grass was very green. But Gandalf looked at him from under long bushy eyebrows that stuck out further than the brim of his shady hat.
“What do you mean?” he said. “Do you wish me a good morning, or mean that it is a good morning whether I want it or not; or that you feel good this morning; or that it is a morning to be good on?”
Whenever we are reading the Bible, I think it is very important to ask the question ‘what does this mean?’ Or better yet, ‘what did the author mean?’ Sometimes we read the text of the Bible and we carry with out hermeneutical baggage, or ways in which we think we know what the words mean, even if we don’t have good reason for thinking so. In fact, we have assumptions about meaning that we don’t even know we have. A word, today, however, may not mean exactly the same thing it meant back then. Words evolve, sometimes over short periods of time (consider the word “gay”).
Note that in the conversation between Gandalf and Bilbo that Gandalf recognized multiple logical possibilities for what Bilbo meant by the phrase ‘good morning.’ When we read the Bible, we should be aware that there are potentially multiple logical possibilities for what the author meant. There are many instances where theological concepts or ideas have many possible meanings. Consider one example of the word ‘election.’ Now consider the possible ways that word could be meant:
A. Choosing individuals for eternal salvation
- Logically prior to creation (supralapsarian)
- Logically after the Fall (infralapsarian)
- Logically after the atonement (sublapsarian)
B. Choosing individuals for an earthly task
- Supralapsarian (1a)
- Infralapsarian (1b)
- Sublapsarian (1c)
C. Choosing a group for an earthly task
- Supralapsarian (1a)
- Infralapsarian (1b)
- Sublapsarian (1c)
D. Choosing a group for eternal salvation
- Supralapsarian (1a)
- Infralapsarian (1b)
- Sublapsarian (1c)
These are but a mere 12 possibilities for what could be meant by “election” and I haven’t here considered the ways that “choosing” could be meant. Is it with regard to something the human will do in the future or did in the past (conditional election), or does God disregard human action in his deliberating who will be chosen (unconditional election)? Adding the conditional/unconditional distinction would double the logical possibilities of what ‘election’ could mean.
The way we discover the meaning of the author is through historical investigation. We can’t expect to know what a term really means if we don’t inquire, “What do you mean?”
Bilbo’s reply to Gandalf inquiry was “All of them at once”! Now that may be a plausible interpretation of the phrase ‘good morning’ in Bilbo’s context because the available options were not contradicting one another. Interestingly enough, we do find in the Bible some instances where the authors provide multiple meanings. But ordinarily there is but one meaning.
When we are studying the Bible (or really any piece of literature), we should continually ask ourselves whether or not the author meant one thing or another.
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