성경 해석에 있어서 교회와 성경과 비평의 역할

The Roles of the Bible, the Church, and the Criticism in Biblical Interpretation -in the Light of the History of the Interpretation of the Bible

The purpose of this article is to understand the roles of the Bible, the church and the criticism in reference to biblical interpretation through the history of the interpretation of the Bible. First and foremost one must take on the interpretative task of gaining an understanding of the nature of the Bible as God's Word in addition to the nature of its interpreter as Dasein. With such fundamental understanding as the basis of my argument, I will discuss by dividing the history of biblical interpretation into four periods, together with the method of interpretation that represents each period and each method's governing authority. Briefly speaking, the four periods can be divided into the period from the early church to the Medieval, the period of Reformation to German pietism, the period of modernism, and lastly the period of post-modernism. The period from the early church up to the Medieval mainly deals with allegorical interpretation as the standard interpretation where as the second period uses grammatical-historical interpretation as the standard interpretation. Thirdly, the modernism period, historical criticism is used as the standard interpretation and post-modern interpretation is the standard interpretation method for the fourth period. Additionally the church or dogma can be seen as the first period's governing authority where as the Bible is the governing authority of the second period. The third and fourth period have both reason as it's governing authority, except that the fourth period has post-modern reason as it's governing authority. Ultimately the Bible has the absolute and final authority in biblical interpretation, however as seen throughout the Reformation, church as well as criticism also plays an important role for fair biblical interpretation, when it is used in a proper way. The Bible and church have a helical relationship in which a genuine church protects and defends our faith and biblical truth, and God's word, the Bible, contributes continuously to the reformation of church. Sound dogma not only guides a believer to true faith but also serves as a measuring stick that distinguishes heresy and orthodox as well as becoming a 'hermeneutical fence' that defends, protects and maintains biblical truth. In understanding the roles of the church and the reason or criticism in biblical hermeneutics, understanding the interpretative presupposition of the interpreter(interpreter as Dasein) is inevitable (Bultmann and post-modernism). Therefore, criticism or reason in biblical interpretation should be practiced strictly on the basis of sound theology, ethic, and spirituality.