faith), independent of the church’s faith and life, and independent of the
church’s (or any other) authority and infl uence. Their motto: let us go
wherever the text takes us. Autonomy extends to the biblical materials,
too; they must be read like any other book—apart from how they have
been read previously, sans any reference to their location within the bibli-
cal canon and, indeed, absent any consideration of their status as Scripture.
Those who today do want to read the Bible for its signifi cance to the
church have maintained their modern credentials generally by adopting
two emphases from modern hermeneutics. The fi rst of these is distan-
tiation —that is, the need to craft a mental space separating the contem-
porary reader from the ancient text. (The mortal sin is anachronism.)
Depending on the commitments of the interpreter, the biblical text may
or may not have signifi cance for twenty-fi rst century readers; if it does,
the path to its signifi cance is indirect, requiring an often labyrinthine and
time- consuming detour through the past in order to determine what the
text might originally have meant back then in its own socio-historical con-
text. If God is to speak in and through the biblical text today, God can do
so only after history has fi rst spoken—and, indeed, after history has fi rst
established boundaries around what God might be able to say, or what the
church might say about God. In this case, theological interests are added
like a dab of frosting on a cake, a coat of theology on the wall of scientifi c
engagement with a biblical text. The importance of technique is the sec-
ond emphasis. If readers of biblical texts no longer have direct access to
the words of the Bible, but must take one or more of the serpentine roads
offered them by historical analysis, then they need training in how to navi-
gate these new paths. If the signifi cance of biblical texts resides in ancient
times, then interpreters need new maps and new gear for traversing the
past as foreign country. These two priorities, distantiation and technique,
have determined the shape of modern biblical studies, so perhaps it is not
surprising that those who are inducted into these interests and protocols
have become increasingly skeptical of the immediacy of the Bible’s mes-
sage for their lives and the life of the church.
Someone might protest that my characterization of modern biblical
studies is overly negative, so let me add a little nuance. First, if the chief
aims of teaching students to read biblical texts closely are to slow down the
process of interpretation so as to encourage refl ection on the capacity of
these texts to speak into and over against its interpreters today and to cul-
tivate a basic disposition of respect for its character as “other,” then bibli-
cal studies today has much to offer. Such disciplined attention to Scripture
PENTECOSTAL HERMENEUTICS: A WESLEYAN PERSPECTIVE 161