Reformational Hermeneutics according to Brian Gerrish
I’ve been reading a lot of Brian Gerrish (not pictured) lately. I’ve been familiar with some of his work for a while now, but I’ve lately begun diving into his essays. It has been a lot of fun. I find him very easy to read, and his keen historical judgment unfailingly results in thought-provoking insights. So it should come as no surprise that I wanted to share some of this with you, gentle readers. What follows is a passage wherein Gerrish lays out five points as a summary of Luther’s “exegetical principles.” B. A. Gerrish, “The Word of God and the Words of Scripture: Luther and Calvin on Biblical Authority,” The Old Protestantism and the New: Essays on the Reformation Heritage (London: T & T Clark, 2004), 57. Bold is from; italics are from Gerrish’s. Luther’s interpretation of scripture . . . . The pertinent exegetical principles can be summed up under five major heads. First, the literal meaning is to be preferred to the allegorical when we are seeking to establish points o