The Core Assumption
Meaning lives in the single literal sense of the text, recovered by grammar, history, and the original languages.
The Four Assumptions
- Where meaning lives
- Meaning lives in the one literal sense the author intended, which the words convey when read grammatically and historically.
- What the text is
- The text is God's clear and sufficient Word in human language, perspicuous in what is necessary and not a veil requiring a second hidden sense.
- Who may interpret
- The interpreter is any reader equipped with the languages, grammar, and history, since Scripture interprets itself and is not the preserve of a clerical caste.
- What counts as a good reading
- A reading is adequate when it follows the scope and circumstances of the passage, agrees with the analogy of faith, and can be shown from the text itself.
Genealogy
This method arose in the reformation period (16th century, with roots in late medieval literalism).
Key proponents: Martin Luther, John Calvin, Philipp Melanchthon, William Tyndale.
Key texts: Preface to the Old Testament by Martin Luther; Institutes of the Christian Religion by John Calvin; Commentary on Romans by John Calvin.
The Procedure
These are the same steps The Workshop will walk you through.
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Go to the original languages
Consult the Hebrew or Greek text, or reliable aids, for the passage's key words and constructions.
Why this step matters: The Reformers made the return to the sources the first discipline of interpretation.
How to do it: Check how the author uses the same terms elsewhere before accepting a gloss from tradition.
What goes wrong here: Preaching from a translation detail that the original language does not support.
You record: Language notes. Done well when: Each decisive term is verified against the original text or a critical lexicon.
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Fix the historical circumstances
Establish the author, audience, occasion, and historical setting of the passage.
Why this step matters: Calvin's commentaries open by situating each book because sense depends on circumstances.
How to do it: Use internal evidence first, then established history; distinguish what is known from what is conjectured.
What goes wrong here: Reading a passage as a timeless proof text severed from its occasion.
You record: Circumstances statement. Done well when: The statement separates documented facts from reasonable inference.
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Determine the author's scope
State in one sentence what the author is aiming to do in this passage within the argument of the whole book.
Why this step matters: Both Luther and Calvin judge every verse by the scopus, the drift and intention of the writer.
How to do it: Read the whole book or letter before expounding the part; test the sentence against the passages before and after.
What goes wrong here: Making a subordinate clause carry a doctrine the passage is not addressing.
You record: Scope statement. Done well when: The scope statement accounts for the passage's place in the whole work.
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Expound the literal sense
Paraphrase the passage in plain words that follow its grammar and sequence without adding a second sense.
Why this step matters: The goal is the author's own meaning, lucidly restated, which Calvin called the genuine and simple sense.
How to do it: Where the text itself uses figure or type, say so and show the textual warrant; do not import figures.
What goes wrong here: Flat literalism that reads apocalyptic imagery or parable as prose reportage.
You record: Literal exposition. Done well when: The paraphrase adds nothing the passage does not say and omits nothing it does.
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Test by the analogy of faith
Compare the exposition with the clear teaching of Scripture elsewhere and state any remaining tension honestly.
Why this step matters: Scripture interpreting Scripture is the Reformers' control against both tradition and private fancy.
How to do it: Let clearer passages govern obscure ones, and record tensions rather than harmonizing them by force.
What goes wrong here: Using the analogy of faith to override what this passage plainly says.
You record: Analogy of faith check. Done well when: The final exposition can stand beside the cited parallels without contradiction or coercion.
Inputs Required
- A biblical passage, ideally with access to the original languages
- A grammar and lexicon or study aids
- Knowledge of the book's historical setting
Outputs Produced
- A single literal exposition of the passage
- Doctrine and application drawn from the literal sense
Quality Criteria
Under this method, a good reading is one that meets these tests:
- Grammatical and linguistic accuracy
- Attention to scope and circumstances
- Agreement with the analogy of faith
- Clarity and restraint in exposition
Common Errors
- Confusing the literal sense with wooden literalism about figures of speech
- Proof-texting verses against their scope
- Claiming certainty for historical reconstructions that are conjectural
Strengths
- It restored the text itself, in its languages, as the court of appeal in theology.
- It democratized interpretation by denying that Scripture's real meaning is hidden behind the letter.
- It is the direct ancestor of the historical-grammatical method still standard in much exegesis.
Weaknesses and Critics
- Its confidence in a single determinate sense understates the genuine plurality of some texts.
- It can underplay how later canonical and ecclesial reading reshapes earlier texts.
- In practice its analogy of faith control could smuggle confessional conclusions back into exegesis.
Henri de Lubac: De Lubac argued that the Reformers' rejection of the spiritual senses impoverished reading, severing the Testaments and losing the patristic and medieval insight that Scripture's realities themselves signify. (Medieval Exegesis and History and Spirit, by Henri de Lubac)
Hans Frei: Frei showed that the later heirs of this method split meaning from reference, so that the literal sense collapsed either into bare historical fact or into timeless doctrine, losing the narrative sense the Reformers themselves prized. (The Eclipse of Biblical Narrative by Hans Frei)
Internal Schools
Lutheran line: Luther reads the literal sense Christologically and through law and gospel, with rhetorical freedom and a preacher's ear.
Reformed line: Calvin and the Reformed stress lucid brevity, the author's circumstances, and disciplined commentary form, with less homiletic expansion.
Exemplar Readings
Calvin on Romans (Romans 3:21-26): Calvin expounds the passage by its place in Paul's argument, defining righteousness, faith, and propitiation from Paul's usage and circumstances, and refuses allegorical detours in favor of the apostle's own sequence.
Luther on Genesis (Genesis 1-3): Luther's Lectures on Genesis work from the Hebrew wording and the historical narrative, attacking allegorical exposition while reading the text as real history that preaches law and gospel.
What This Method Cannot Do
Literal-historical interpretation cannot by itself decide between two grammatically sound readings where the evidence underdetermines the author's intention. It cannot recover a setting the sources do not preserve, and it cannot address the questions later methods raise about how the text functions for readers and communities distant from its origin.
Site Stance
The site has not yet assigned its stance on this method. The stance assignments wait on the named reviewers, the same naming the Christian Assessment verdicts wait on. The method stands here in full in the meantime: a stance discloses the site's judgment, and it never filters what a reader may read or run. The stance values and their criteria stand on the criteria page.
Run This Method in the Workshop
Open this method on the bench →
Across the Site
This method belongs to the Premodern and Classical Schools family. Its sources stand in the References register; its family stands among the site's tools; the positions it produces can be compared in the Diptych.
Primary Sources
- Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book IV and commentaries, by John Calvin
- Lectures on Genesis by Martin Luther
- The Obedience of a Christian Man by William Tyndale
Secondary Sources
- Medieval Exegesis by Henri de Lubac
- The Eclipse of Biblical Narrative by Hans Frei
- Biblical Interpretation in the Reformation era, surveyed in The Cambridge History of the Bible, vol. 3