Authorial Intent

The First Step Toward Understanding Scripture

When scripture appears to be open to different interpretations depending upon interpreters’ presuppositions than the task at hand is no longer interpreting scripture, but arguing opinions.

The interpretation of scripture transcends what we bring to the text. Authorial intent does not change. Some discard authorial intent as an impossible standard. It may appear subjective. One may claim to find authorial intent with only a cursory examination of the text. Another believes that his speculations about the circumstances of the author establishes a better authorial intent. Neither trusts the text of the scripture they wish to interpret. Mistakes in interpretation are much easier to perpetuate in isolation. The community of faith is a guard against such misinterpretation.

Alone each interpreter possesses a trump card, ignorance, which permits the failure to distinguish between personal opinion and the text. Each interpreter who uses his trump card reaches an impasse when meeting up with an interpreter with a different trump card that suits him better. Neither is willing to cede the superiority of the other’s suit. Both claim to interpret scripture correctly, yet neither relies on the natural laws of linguistics.

These laws must be recognized in order to avoid uttering nonsense. We tacitly acknowledge them every time we open our mouths, put pen to paper, or fingertip to keyboard. We have to bridge the chasm between our own thoughts and those of others. Bridging this adequately without becoming a bore is a remarkable accomplishment in a context like this. I sit at my desk, and try to communicate all of the necessary thoughts that I have had while working up to this post.

This effort was made by every author who intended to communicate God’s truth in writing. Paul knew that there was a gap between his understanding of the faith and that of the Romans. He sought to overcome this chasm as each of does. Today as we read this scripture we may recognize that there are several additional gaps between our thoughts and Paul’s. We have a different native language. We have to speculate about the organization of the church. We don’t know the roles of the people named in the church. Each of these gaps are ours to overcome. Some are more crucial than others. We have translations to help over some of them. Some of them don’t require definitive answers. But they are gaps nevertheless.

The challenge lies in protecting my guesses about authorial intent. Not defending them against the doubts of others, but not making them carry more weight than they can bear. This is difficult to do if I set out to interpret scripture by myself. A house of cards can grow quite grand as long as no one breathes nearby. In the same way, I could construct a fanciful interpretation of scripture based more on my own thoughts than on the text. If we hold the text in high regard and consider our own thoughts with humility, we will do well. To often our own hopes and expectations satisfy us when we had first set out to understand scripture.

Recognizing that at the outset there is a chasm between our understanding and the understanding of the author is a powerful first step toward accurately interpreting scripture. I must acknowledge that the author knew something that I didn’t, and that I don’t know it very well for I am dependent upon what the author wrote—which is necessarily less than he knew.

Other steps involve understanding how language works to communicate meaning to bridge this chasm. The author used techniques to give structure to the text. He tried to give much meaning to what he wrote. Now I am left with only the text to decipher the author’s intent. This is why understanding the how of how scripture communicates truth through language is, in my opinion, a reward of truth exceeded only by Christ himself.

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