Exegetical Fallacies

Exegetical Fallacies

by D.A. Carson

Updated explanations of the "sins" of interpretation teach sound grammatical, lexical, cultural, theological, and historical Bible study practices.

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Paperback, 148 pages

Published March 1st 1996 by Baker Academic (first published November 30th 1983)

tags: theology, reference, new testament, scripture, linguistics, christianity, language, religion, humanities, nonfiction, christian

Book Quotes

“A little self-doubt will do no harm and may do a great deal of good: we will be more open to learn and correct our mistakes. But too much will shackle and stifle us with deep insecurities and make us so much aware of methods that we may overlook truth itself.”

― D.A. Carson

topics: Christian, Criticism, Hermeneutics, Insecurities, Mistakes, Self Doubt, Truth

“We are dealing with God’s thoughts: we are obligated to take the greatest pains to understand them truly and to explain them clearly.”

― D.A. Carson

“The essence of all critical thought, in the best sense of that abused expression, is the justification of opinions. A critical interpretation of Scripture is one that has adequate justification—lexical, grammatical, cultural, theological, historical, geographical, or other justification.”

― D.A. Carson

“the remaining debates among those who hold a high view of Scripture will be exegetical and hermeneutical, nothing else.”

― D.A. Carson

“but one that demands that we learn to move toward unanimity in the crucial business of thinking God’s thoughts after him. This, surely, is part of the discipline of loving God with our minds.”

― D.A. Carson

“The fundamental danger with all critical study of the Bible lies in what hermeneutical experts call distanciation. Distanciation is a necessary component of critical work; but it is difficult and sometimes costly.”

― D.A. Carson

“I state that exegesis is concerned with actually interpreting the text, whereas hermeneutics is concerned with the nature of the interpretative process.”

― D.A. Carson

“This does not mean real knowledge is impossible. Rather, it means that real knowledge is close to impossible if we fail to recognize our own assumptions, questions, interests, and biases; but if we recognize them and, in dialogue with the text, seek to make allowances for them, we will be better able to avoid confusing our own world-views with those of the biblical writers.”

― D.A. Carson

“I am simply saying that the meaning of a word cannot be reliably determined by etymology, or that a root, once discovered, always projects a certain semantic load onto any word that incorporates that root.”

― D.A. Carson

“my point is that we cannot responsibly assume that etymology is related to meaning. We can only test the point by discovering the meaning of a word inductively.”

― D.A. Carson

“In short, words change their meaning over time.”

― D.A. Carson

“we should be a trifle suspicious when any piece of exegesis tries to establish the meaning of a word by appealing first of all to its usage in classical Greek rather than to its usage in Hellenistic Greek.”

― D.A. Carson

“But one should be suspicious of all statements about the nature of “the Hebrew mind” or “the Greek mind” if those statements are based on observations about the semantic limitations of words of the language in question.”

― D.A. Carson

“False assumptions about technical meaning In this fallacy, an interpreter falsely assumes that a word always or nearly always has a certain technical meaning—a meaning usually derived either from a subset of the evidence or from the interpreter’s personal systematic theology.”

― D.A. Carson

“But the heart of the issue is that semantics, meaning, is more than the meaning of words.”

― D.A. Carson

“But tragic is the situation when the preacher or teacher is perpetually unaware of the blatant nonsense he utters, and of the consequent damage he inflicts on the church of God. Nor”

― D.A. Carson

“It is all too easy to read the traditional interpretations we have received from others into the text of Scripture. Then we may unwittingly transfer the authority of Scripture to our traditional interpretations and invest them with a false, even an idolatrous, degree of certainty. Because”

― D.A. Carson

“Many local Bible teachers and preachers have never been forced to confront alternative interpretations at full strength; and because they would lose a certain psychological security if they permitted their own questions, aroused by their own reading of Scripture, to come into full play, they are unlikely to throw over received traditions. But”

― D.A. Carson

D.A. Carson

Donald Arthur Carson is a Canadian-born evangelical theologian and professor of New Testament.

Carson served as pastor of Richmond Baptist Church in Richmond, British Columbia from 1970 to 1972. Following his doctoral studies, he served for three years at Northwest Baptist Theological College (Vancouver) and in 1976 was the founding dean of the seminary. In 1978, Carson joined the faculty of Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, where he is currently serving as research professor.

Carson has written or edited 57 books, many of which have been translated into Chinese.
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