Notes

Notes

Notes

Notes to the Introduction

1 . For reasons explained later in the main text, I follow the convention of some recent works in using a lowercase “p” for global pentecostal experience that includes but is not limited to Pentecostal denominations.

2 . Boda, “Word and Spirit,” 25, rightly laments that most Christian theological approaches to hermeneutics focus on the NT. This work will be no exception, though that is because of my academic expertise, not out of theological disrespect for or devotional neglect of the OT.

3 . Focused on context, background and genre, it is available free on the internet in English, Spanish, French and some other languages at http://www.craigkeener.com/free-resources/ . I produced it free with special concern for providing it in places where readers had less access to published resources.

4 . In addition to some explicitly charismatic works addressed elsewhere in this book, relevant, valuable and influential contributions by some of my fellow evangelical scholars include, among many others, Thiselton, Horizons; Osborne, Spiral; Klein, Blomberg, and Hubbard, Introduction ² ; Brown, Scripture as Communication; Bartholomew, Hermeneutics; many others, from various traditions and approaches, could be named. I explain the social-historical and rhetorical approach used in my Acts commentary (albeit as only one approach, not the necessary form for all approaches) in Keener, Acts, 1:16–26.

5 . Green, Seized, 2–5, notes that reading the Bible like any other book can be helpful, but argues that this is not reading the Bible as Scripture, as God’s Word. For one discussion of “confessional biblical hermeneutics,” see Spawn, “Principle,” 46–47, citing the work of Craig Bartholomew and others.

6 . I chose the title “Spirit hermeneutics” early in the process, while seeking to draft the book inductively from biblical data before engaging modern Pentecostal readings. It was only late in the process, then, that I discovered that, fortuitously and independently, charismatic theologian Clark Pinnock had coined the same phrase; see helpfully here Pinnock, “Work of Spirit” (originally published as Pinnock, “Interpretation,” in 2009), 233–34, 237–39.

7 . For description, see today esp. Grey, Crowd (drawing on a range of popular settings; see 197–204); for the value of such description in bringing Pentecostalism’s voice to the table, see Grey, Crowd, 5, comparing feminist and liberationist hermeneutics. For one detailed treatment of the earliest decades of Pentecostal interpretation, see Archer, Hermeneutic, 89–127; for their hermeneutical context, see 47–88; for the Pentecostal community’s story as a hermeneutical filter, see 128–71. Archer, Hermeneutic, 211, supports using this story as foundational for Pentecostal hermeneutics today, but even sympathetic observers (both outside and inside the movement) may question why the early Pentecostal story, rather than stories from more recent renewal movements, should be given such weight.

8 . The definition is elusive because the boundaries are fluid, though there is a core spiritual identity (so also Archer, “Hermeneutics and Society,” here 320–22). The Society of Pentecostal Studies itself is “a diverse hermeneutical community” (332–35). “Pentecostal interpretation is a contextualized theological hermeneutical activity,” listening to the Spirit (331). Others also stress the need for contextual interpretation within a cultural community (as opposed to simply a general “pentecostal hermeneutic”); see here Estrada, “Hermeneutic.”

9 . Cf. Spawn and Wright, “Introduction,” xvii, on hermeneutics in the renewal tradition (e.g., global Catholic and Protestant charismatics) but without “a specific scholarly method”; idem, “Emergence,” 21–22; Thomas, “Spirit Is Saying,” 115 (on the wide range of Pentecostal approaches to hermeneutics); Bauckham, “Review of Waddell”; Waddell, “Hearing,” 190–91, following K. Archer, on “multiple strategies . . . without doing violence to the text”; Grey, Crowd, 4, on “Pentecostal” readings conformed “to fit whatever category of the wider academy each scholar considers most appropriate, whether that be postmodern, evangelical or otherwise.” Others point out that, despite much theoretical discussion of “pneumatic interpretation,” little has been done to describe it (Davies, “Read as Pentecostal,” 261). Still, even those who expressly acknowledge Pentecostal diversity (e.g., Archer, Hermeneutic, 181–92) sometimes state, “Pentecostals believe” (252, 254). This problem is not limited to Pentecostals; cf. the lack of a single, distinctive Baptist identity in Kidd and Hankins, Baptists, 248.

10 . E.g., criticizing Archer’s work, see Spawn and Wright, “Emergence,” 14–15; Poirier, “Critique” (brought to my attention by John Wyckoff); cf. Oliverio, Hermeneutics, 193, 231.

11 . Also a key point in Poirier, “Critique,” esp. 1, 3.

12 . Many estimate roughly one hundred million; see Johnson and Ross, Atlas, 102.

13 . Many observers today estimate at least half a billion in the Pentecostal and charismatic families of believers, comprising nearly 30 percent of global church membership and nearly 40 percent of regular church attenders; see, e.g., Johnson, Barrett, and Crossing, “Christianity 2010,” 36; cf. Sanneh, Disciples, 275. These figures use wider definitions of charismatics than many charismatics would embrace (see Anderson, Pentecostalism, 11), and more refined methods in the future may require adjustments in such figures; nevertheless, they do convey a sense of the massive size and growth of such movements.

14 . Thus Ellington, “Authority,” 153, notes his “frustration” in describing “Pentecostal experience,” since, although common to Pentecostals, it is not unique to them; note also Waddell, “Hearing,” 174–75n12 and 183, regarding theological reading, and 181, regarding Pentecostal theological connections with various movements (following Land, “Passion,” 29–30).

15 . For the Pentecostal movement’s first decades as reflecting the heart of Pentecostal spirituality, see, e.g., Thomas, “Spirit Is Saying,” 119.

16 . Cf. Bultmann, “Problem of Hermeneutics,” 76–77, 79: once texts have first been understood according to their purposed function, they may also be used as “sources” by which we address other questions.

17 . Cf. the warning in Moore, “Canon,” 29–30 against “a Spirit-less Word (rationalism)” and “a Word-less Spirit (subjectivism)”; Pinnock, “Work of Spirit,” 233, 241; for valuing both affective and cognitive dimensions, see discussion later in the main text (p. 32), with the example of biblical psalms.

18 . For one very important sampling, see Martin, Reader; the surveys of views in Grey, Crowd, 36–61; Macchia, “Spirit and Text”; Ahn, “Debates”; extensively, Oliverio, Hermeneutics; and the bibliographies in e.g., Wyckoff, Pneuma, 143–50; Martin, Reader, 285–90; Spawn and Wright, Spirit and Scripture, 199–211; Archer, Hermeneutic, 270–88; Oliverio, Hermeneutics, 363–76; and (though not limited primarily to hermeneutics) Mittelstadt, Reading, 170–205.

19 . Early Pentecostals, like many of their contemporaries, read Scripture as authoritative and read it canonically (Martin, “Introduction,” 4–5). This accords with Christian interpretation in general, which, while allowing for the distinctive voices of the different authors, affirms the overarching narrative and the fundamental theological unity of the canon (Brown, Scripture as Communication, 229). For canonical approaches, see, e.g., Childs, Canon; idem, Scripture; Childs et al., Bible as Scripture; Bartholomew, Canon; Hahn, Kinship; in patristic sources, e.g., Young, “Mind of Scripture”; for studies on canonical approaches, cf. also Brett, Criticism; Noble, Approach. Some would even accept the value of Mark 16:9–20 because it is canonical (though not Markan) and because of its role in early Pentecostal tradition (Thomas and Alexander, “Signs”).

20 . Cf. Martin, “Spirit and Flesh,” 1, as cited in Johns and Johns, “Yielding,” 51: “exegesis according to the Spirit” “presupposes that the reader is in living contact with the same realities about which the author in the Sacred Text is speaking.”

21 . See Martin, “Introduction,” 6–8.

22 . Cf. here Stronstad, “Experience,” here 17, 25–26, as cited in Archer, “Retrospect and Prospect,” 144.

23 . Cf. here also Thomas, “Women,” 82: far from simply desiring to articulate their own distinctive hermeneutic, Pentecostals seek to provide a hermeneutical gift to the wider church, just as they have done with their emphasis on and insights into pneumatology.

24 . Cf. Polybius on the writing of history: “So that as nothing written by mere students of books is written with experience or vividness, their works are of no practical utility to readers” (Polybius 12.25g.2).

25 . Others also suggest that distinctive Pentecostal insights may contribute to some more traditionally cessationist evangelical scholarship, and that evangelical priority on Scripture should also help Pentecostals; see Cartledge, “Text-Community-Spirit,” 135–42.

26 . Green, Practicing Theological Interpretation, 101–2 (following esp. Haskell, Objectivity, esp. 145–73), distinguishes between neutrality of personal commitment, which on issues important to a person is often self-deception, and the scholarly ideal of objectivity, by which he means honesty, fairness, openness to other views, and realistic self-appraisal.

27 . For just a few samples of some important academic works on Pentecostalism, see, e.g., Anderson, Pentecostalism; Blumhofer, Faith; Blumhofer, Spittler, and Wacker, Currents; Bomann, Faith in Barrios; Cartledge, Tongues; Chesnut, Born Again in Brazil; Dempster, Klaus, and Petersen, Globalization; Jacobsen, Thinking in Spirit; Kalu, African Pentecostalism; Khai, Cross; Poloma, Assemblies; Satyavrata, “Globalization”; Angela Tarango, Jesus Way; Wacker, Heaven; Yong, Spirit Poured.

28 . Cf. early concerns for institutionalization noted in Robeck, Mission, 290.

29 . Oliverio, Hermeneutics, 78–81, 255–57. See also Smith Wigglesworth in Anderson, Ends of the Earth, 206; Aimee Semple McPherson in Blumhofer, Sister, 16–17, 144, 167, 176–77, 207, 211, 217–21.

30 . Anderson, Pentecostalism, 152 (but cf. 155), and idem, Ends of the Earth, 212–13, suggests more than 120 million Catholic charismatics; the figure is even higher in Johnson and Ross, Atlas, 102.

31 . It offers both a useful historical and sociological study in its own right, and, most relevantly here, is useful for critiquing interpreters’ various inherited biases. Translating and recontextualizing the text’s message for various audiences helps us grapple with the texts more concretely.

32 . Pentecostals do not even have a synod or council of the sort recommended by Calvin (Wyckoff, Pneuma, 28–29), and if we did, few Pentecostal scholars or denominations would trust it enough at this point to submit ourselves to its decisions. Today most theologians, both Catholic and Protestant, affirm that the Spirit can illuminate the text for any believer (Wyckoff, Pneuma, 90). That believers (and communities) sometimes arrive at competing “illuminations,” however, remains a problem. Bullinger and some other Reformation leaders “saw the need for a kind of Protestant magisterium” to prevent individual use of convenience as an interpretive criterion (George, “Introduction,” xxviii), but of course lack of consensus has always virtually doomed such an approach from the start, unless we define theological consensus in wide, Christian terms.

33 . Poirier, “Critique.”

34 . Cf. Grey, Crowd, 187: Pentecostalism’s growth “is not necessarily a corollary of good hermeneutics.”

35 . Stormont, Wigglesworth, 114.

36 . Classical Pentecostals shared conservative Protestants’ “high view of Scripture,” offering natural connections (Oliverio, Hermeneutics, 83); they also emerged from a holiness-evangelical matrix (as often emphasized, esp. since Synan, Movement).

37 . I adapt the latter part of this paragraph from Keener, “Biblical Fidelity,” 40.

38 . Cf. Stibbe, “Thoughts,” 181, 192, who argues for valuing both historical criticism and subjective embrace of the text.

39 . E.g., Paul wanted his audience not only to recognize his command that they practice hospitality, but also to comply with it (Brown, Scripture as Communication, 98).

40 . See Stein, Guide, 60–66.

41 . Walton and Sandy, World, 288–89.

42 . Agreeing here with the majority of biblical scholars; so Wyckoff, Pneuma, 56, 82–84; Thiselton, “Hermeneutics,” 148–49. See also Thiselton, Horizons, 91–92 (following T. F. Torrance), 440.

43 . Wyckoff, Pneuma, 84. Despite my way of framing of the perspectives reflected in the choice of citations above, I believe that Stein, Walton, and Sandy would concur.

44 . On the Spirit as teacher, see Wyckoff, Pneuma, 80, 97–122 (esp. 117–18), 129–30; Stibbe, “Thoughts,” 184; for this role of the Spirit for Calvin, cf. also Wyckoff, Pneuma, 27, citing Forstman, Word and Spirit, 75. On proposed backgrounds for the Johannine image of the Spirit as teacher, see Keener, John, 2:977–82.

45 . Arrington, “Use,” 105, as cited in Archer, “Retrospect and Prospect,” 145; Archer, Hermeneutic, 195–96.

46 . I address this question at much fuller length in Keener, Mind, passim. Affirming both the “through” and the “beyond,” I teach, prophesy, and pray in tongues.

47 . Moberly, “Hermeneutics,” 161–62, notes that most pneumatic hermeneutical approaches proposed by Pentecostals are not limited to Pentecostals, appearing even in the church fathers.

48 . Cf., e.g., Magrassi, Praying the Bible; Paintner and Wynkoop, Lectio Divina; Robertson, Lectio Divina; McEntyre, Phrase, x.

49 . See Nyunt, “Hesychasm. ”

50 . Wyckoff, Pneuma, 13–18, 124. See, e.g., Chrys. Hom. Cor. 37 (cited in Wyckoff, Pneuma, 16).

51 . Ramm, Interpretation, 98; Wyckoff, Pneuma, 22–24. For Luther’s theological, christocentric goal in historical-grammatical interpretation, see Grant and Tracy, History, 94; for his emphasis on application, see Wengert, “Luther,” 104, 106. Unlike Luther, some of his seventeenth-century successors viewed Scripture only with critical intellect and not with the heart (Grant and Tracy, History, 97).

52 . Luther WA 5:108, as quoted in Bartholomew, Hermeneutics, 198; Luther insisted that he had learned to abandon his own wisdom and depend on the Spirit to hear Scripture (WA 4:519.3–4, as quoted in Bartholomew, Hermeneutics, 199). Luther notes Paul’s appeal to his audience’s experience in Gal 3:5 (First Lectures on Galatians, on 3:5, in Bray, Galatians, Ephesians, 93).

53 . George, “Introduction,” xxv.

54 . Wyckoff, Pneuma, 27, citing Calvin, Corinthians, 117; Calvin, Catholic Epistles, 389; Osborne, Spiral, 340, citing Inst. 1:93–95; George, “Introduction,” xxix; see esp. now Adhinarta, Doctrine, 38 (addressing subsequent confessions on 39–43).

55 . Oliverio, Hermeneutics, 85, following Grenz, Renewing, 69, 71.

56 . Wyckoff, Pneuma, 43.

57 . Wyckoff, Pneuma, 43–45. Wyckoff also cites influences in this respect such as Aquinas (18–20) and Francis Turretin (29–30).

58 . Kidd and Hankins, Baptists, 122. Wayland was Brown’s president from 1827 to 1855. One of his students founded Baylor University and another was president of the University of Michigan for nearly four decades (122–23).

59 . Lightfoot, Acts, 51.

60 . King, Only Believe, 207, citing Chambers, Help, 146 (also Chambers, Chambers, 152; idem, Psychology, 200), and distinguishing his approach from that of Karl Barth. Arguing that Scripture “is not of itself the word of God, but only becomes the word of God to the reader” through the Spirit (Ellington, “Authority,” 156–57) sounds neoorthodox, but is not always intended this way (cf. the disclaimer in Davies, “Read as Pentecostal,” 257, although it also sounds neoorthodox).

61 . King, Only Believe, 207–8, citing Tozer, Pursuit, 68.

62 . Cf. the importance of the Spirit in interpretation in Klein, Blomberg, and Hubbard, Introduction, 425–26. Even from a purely secular standpoint, pervasive modern appeals to Scripture require attention to method; cf. the observations of Collins, Babel, 133.

63 . E.g., Newlands, “Ovid”; Tsouna, “Introduction,” viii. Scholars can also draw contemporary insights from other older texts; see, e.g., Espinoza, “Pia Desideria ” on a 1675 work of Phillip Spener. Scholars of Stoicism often want students to appreciate Stoicism, and try to answer some of the objections against it (Rorty, “Faces,” 243; cf. also Irwin, “Stoic Inhumanity,” 238). Others cite the value of ancient Stoic insights for cognitive psychology (see Sorabji, Emotion, 1–4, 225–26; cf. Rorty, “Faces,” 260–62).

64 . Bruce, “Interpretation,” 566, as cited favorably in Wyckoff, Pneuma, 3. See at length Marshall, Beyond Bible, including 79: “Scripture needs interpretation and fresh application, both in our doctrine and in our practice.”

65 . Ramm, Interpretation, 60–63. Ramm also protests the liberal rejection of prophecy as carrying emphasis on the original meaning too far (68). But Ramm warns against devotional reading that uses Scripture passages as personal divination (111–12). Still, it should not escape notice that ancient Jews, Christians and pagans did open sacred texts randomly and take the message as relevant for them at that moment; see Van der Horst, “Bibliomancy,” 165–67.

66 . Osborne, Spiral, 340, going on to cite Spurgeon and Calvin. Cf. also Green, Seized, 94–100, emphasizing that Scripture engagement “must be Spirit-imbued”; McQuilkin, Understanding, 85–88, citing as requirements for understanding Scripture regeneration, prayer, humility, and (on 86–87) genuine faith in it, which involves commitment, and (on 87) dependence on the Spirit. Cf. also Wong, “Mind”; Cartledge, “Theology.”

67 . Bauer and Traina, Inductive Bible Study, 36–37, citing John 7:16–17; 1 Cor 2:14. Scripture contains various genres, but some of them are meant to be read in hortatory fashion (Poster, “Affections,” 23) and most were meant to be followed or emphasize points to be followed.

68 . Mulholland, Shaped, 19–21, 134. By this way of reading “we have ears to hear and do not hear” (23); Mulholland recommends instead viewing ourselves as the object shaped by the text (57), and, following Wesley, invites the text to evaluate us (130). His relational approach may echo Martin Buber’s “I-Thou” (for whom the ultimate “Thou” is God; Buber, I and Thou ).

69 . Harrington, Interpreting, 126, as cited in Wyckoff, Pneuma, 67.

70 . Thiselton, “New Hermeneutic,” 80, citing Ebeling, Word and Faith, 318–19; Fuchs, Hermeneutik, 92; idem, Studies, 35, 191–206. For rhetorical criticism, see, e.g., Kwon, 1 Corinthians 1–4, 3–4.

71 . For Luther’s emphasis on “the organic, theological unity of the Bible, ” see Ramm, Interpretation, 56 (emphasis his), though Luther sometimes downgraded biblical works lacking this focus (Fuller, “Analogy,” 210n13).

72 . Blackman, “Exegesis,” 26, insists that criticism is not sufficient; we must seek to understand a text, and then be able to relate it, first “to Christ and the central Biblical doctrine of salvation” and “to the situation of today.”

73 . Wyckoff, Pneuma, 46–48.

74 . Wyckoff, Pneuma, 56, citing Henry, God Who Speaks, 256, 258. See also Wyckoff, Pneuma, 131.

75 . Wyckoff, Pneuma, 57, 75, 136, citing these authors and others; see also Bloesch, “Christological Hermeneutic,” 99–102.

76 . Green, Practicing Theological Interpretation, 1.

77 . See, e.g., Green and Turner, Horizons; Treier, Interpretation.

78 . For most years since that ordination in 1990 (See, e.g., Johnston, “Ordination”; White, “Calling”; Usry and Keener, Religion, 125–29), I have served as an associate minister in African-American Baptist churches. Due to the demographics of our location, the logistics of this association became more difficult after we relocated to teach at Asbury Seminary, although my commitments and long-term plans remain the same. Partly because of where my son joined the worship team (but also because we genuinely like the church), we attend a Vineyard church here.

79 . Keener, Questions; revised in idem, Gift; also idem, “Gifts for Today”; idem, “Luke’s Pneumatology”; idem, “Power.” Additionally, works addressing charismatic-interest topics from a more general scholarly perspective, read more widely beyond charismatic circles, include Keener, Miracles; idem, Spirit; idem, “Acts 2:1–21”; idem, “Gifts”; idem, “Holy Spirit”; idem, “Miracle Reports in Gospels and Today”; idem, “Miracle Reports: Perspectives”; idem, “Miracles”; idem, “Miracles: Dictionary”; idem, “Pentecost”; idem, “Pneumatology”; idem, “Possession”; idem, “Raised”; idem, “Review of Strange Fire ”; idem, “Spirit”; idem, “Spirit Perspectives”; idem, “Tongues”; idem, “Warfare.”

80 . Frank Collier, “Holy Spirit book not best source,” Salisbury Post (Oct. 6, 1996).

81 . Historical Jesus.

82 . An “apologetic” is technically a defense of something.

83 . One version is Keener, Bible in Context (more often distributed in French, and a Spanish version in Latin America); I also contributed to McCain and Keener, Understanding and Applying.

84 . For the idea that the Bible is for the believing community, see the church fathers on the Bible as the church’s book (esp. Tert. Praescriptione 5, 40, cited e.g., in Nichols, Shape, 170); see today Hauerwas, Unleashing, 9, as cited in Ellington, “Authority,” 161. See also Rom 15:4; 1 Cor 10:11; one might distinguish the questions of “to whom” (the original contexts) and “for whom” (the continuing people of God) Scripture was written.

85 . The earliest Pentecostals drew especially from the radical Holiness evangelicals rather than the more rationalistic tradition that ultimately developed particularly in the direction of fundamentalism (Waddell, “Hearing,” 181), though during the modernist-fundamentalist controversy they readily identified with fundamentalists more than antisupernalist modernists.

86 . That includes Pentecostal traditions. I am absolutely convinced, for example, that the old dispensational eschatological approach I was taught in a particular Pentecostal setting is exegetically untenable (I may have made too much of that difference when I was in that setting, but I have always found the approach very simple to deconstruct exegetically).

87 . See, e.g., Alexander and Yong, Daughters; Wacker, Heaven, 158–65 (though contrast opposing tendencies in 165–76); Yong, Spirit Poured, 190–94; McGee, Miracles, 135 (though on 136–37 noting the decline in subsequent Pentecostalism); Powers, “Daughters”; idem, “Recovering”; Alexander, “Conscience,” 59. In various parts of the world, see, e.g., Ma, “Women,” 136–42; Espinosa, “Healing in Borderlands,” 140; Kalu, African Pentecostalism, 161–62; Pothen, “Missions,” 191–92, 255.

Notes to Chapter 1

1 . For praxis in pentecostal hermeneutics, see Johns and Johns, “Yielding,” 42–46 (defining praxis more specifically than I do here).

2 . See, e.g., Waddell, “Hearing,” 182, 186, citing here also Steinmetz, “Superiority” (also published in 65–77 in McKim, Guide ); cf. today also Bartholomew and Thomas, Manifesto. For Luther’s theological interpretation, see, e.g., Ramm, Interpretation, 55–57.

3 . The Third Wave, heavily influenced by the biblical theology of George Ladd, has helpfully shifted this emphasis; see, e.g., Stibbe, “Thoughts,” 188: “One of the distinctive things about charismatic interpretation and exposition is its emphasis on both the ‘now’ and the ‘not yet’ of the kingdom of God.”

4 . As is regularly noted, e.g., Anderson, Pentecostalism, 33–34; McGee, Miracles, 61–76; idem, “Hermeneutics,” 102; idem, “Strategy,” 52–53; Goff, “Theology of Parham,” 64–65; Jacobsen, Thinking in Spirit, 25, 49–50, 74, 76, 97; Robeck, Mission, 41–42, 236–37, 243, 252; see especially McGee, “Shortcut”; idem, “Logic”; Anderson, “Signs,” 195–99.

5 . See, e.g., Wacker, Heaven, 47–51; McGee, People of Spirit, 77–78; idem, “Strategies,” 204; Hudson, “Strange Words,” 61–63; Anderson, “Points,” 167; Ma, “Eschatology,” 100.

6 . See, e.g., Lee, “Future,” 105; Mullin, History, 211; Berger, “Faces,” 425; Tomkins, History, 220; Sweeney, Story, 153; Barrett, “Renewal,” 388; Barrett, Johnson, and Crossing, “Missiometrics 2006,” 28; Barrett, Johnson, and Crossing, “Missiometrics 2007,” 32; Sanneh, Disciples, 275; Noll, Shape, 22, 32, 34; Johnson and Ross, Atlas, 102; Hanciles, Beyond Christendom, 121; Satyavrata, “Globalization,” 3. But for more nuance, see esp. Anderson, Pentecostalism, 11.

7 . Sometimes it has persisted or resurfaced, however; see helpfully McGee, Miracles, 102; esp. Miller, Tongues Revisited.

8 . Keener, Acts, 1:823–31, esp. 823–24; idem, “Tongues.”

9 . See the many sources cited in Keener, Acts, 1:148–65; among evangelicals, see the seminal work Marshall, Historian and Theologian; also idem, “Luke as Theologian”; among Pentecostals, cf. Stronstad, Charismatic Theology. For the compatibility of theological and political readings, see, e.g., Elliot, Arrogance, 23.

10 . Polyb. 1.1.1; Dion. Hal. Ant. rom. 1.2.1; Livy 1, pref. 10; Val. Max. 2.pref.; Tac. Agr. 1; Ann. 3.65; Lucian Hist. 59; cf. Diod. Sic. 37.4.1; Hdn 3.13.3; Max. Tyre 22.5; for moralizing asides, see, e.g., Polyb. 1.35.1–10; Diod. Sic. 31.10.2; Dion. Hal. Ant. rom. 7.65.2; Vell. Paterc. 2.75.2; Dio Cass. 1.5.4; Arrian Alex. 4.10.8; Corn. Nep. 16 (Pelopidas), 3.1; Tac. Ann. 16.15.

11 . For the importance of the cohesive biblical narrative for contemporary narrative theology, see, e.g., Stroup, Promise; Hauerwas and Jones, Narrative; Loughlin, Story; Bartholomew, Hermeneutics, 58–84. The emphasis on narrative does not guarantee that all scholars read that narrative in the same way or find all of the same key “phases” in the story. Nevertheless, narrative was already the most common genre in the Bible, and it provides the structure that gives context to most other pieces of the canon. On salvation history, see earlier Cullmann, Salvation.

12 . See Klein, Blomberg, and Hubbard, Introduction, 350–51.

13 . Dunn, Baptism.

14 . Personal correspondence, July 26 and 27, 2015. “Excelling” is my own gloss on his humbler comments.

15 . Dunn, Unity. See, e.g., Pinnock, “Foreword,” vii: “Ironically, at this point at least, there is greater diversity in the New Testament than even Jimmy Dunn is prepared to grant.”

16 . E.g., for sharing possessions in Acts 2, Evans, Wycliffe, 155, 226; Wesley in Jennings, Good News, 25, 97–117 (esp. 111–16); early Moravians (Williams, Radical Reformation, 429; cf. 229–33); Hutterites (McGee, “Possessions,” 167–68; Williams, Radical Reformation, 232, 426–29); and, less literally, many other Anabaptists (cf. Finger, Meals, 21–22); more recently, the communitarian Jesus Family in China (Anderson, Pentecostalism, 135; Zhaoming, “Chinese Denominations,” 452–64; Yamamori and Chan, Witnesses, 54–62); some elements in the North American Jesus Movement of the 1960s–70s (Jackson, Quest, 32; Di Sabatino, “Frisbee,” 395–96; Eskridge, Family, 88 [cf. 78–79]).

17 . For the diversity of revivals, see, e.g., Shaw, Awakening, 203–6.

18 . Certainly it helps reduce pressure for bias, whether theological (e.g., wanting to defend denominational doctrine) or cultural (e.g., offense at theocratic values). For example, I am free to explore what Jesus said about divorce or what Paul said about homosexual behavior whatever my personal predispositions and pastoral concerns regarding those issues, which I may then address and adjust after the exegesis.

19 . See, e.g., Green, Practicing Theological Interpretation, 13–20, on reducing hermeneutical distance (cf. Green, Seized, 4); Fraser and Kilgore, Friends, 32–36, on finding ourselves and our world in the Bible, rather than highlighting cultural distance to the degree that this becomes impossible. In particular, the Eastern Orthodox churches, already emphasizing the value of the Spirit’s enlightenment, have not been afflicted by the problems of hermeneutical distance that Bultmann and his successors sought to overcome (Vassiliadis, “Ermeneutike”).

20 . E.g., Archer, Hermeneutic, 167; Oliverio, Hermeneutics, 80. The earliest populist Pentecostals, in fact, probably paid too little attention to the original context (cf. the description of their interpretation in Byrd, “Theory,” here 204–5, as cited in Archer, “Retrospect and Prospect,” 134; idem, Hermeneutic, 167); the problem often remains today (see observations in Grey, Crowd, 119). Although such an approach largely ignored the first horizon rather than fusing horizons, most early Pentecostals lacked access to fuller information. Academic biblical study today usually ignores the current horizon, often without even passing the torch to those whose focus is preaching or contextualization; each approach, then, can learn from the other’s strength.

21 . Note the valuing of each in its sphere in Green, Seized, 1–2. Cf. Green, Practicing Theological Interpretation, 73, on how the theological lenses through which Christians read the Torah differ from those of, say, Pharisees or Essenes.

22 . Green, Practicing Theological Interpretation, 107, citing Wesley, Works, 5:3; see also Mulholland, Shaped, 171, citing Wesley, Works, 14:252–53.

23 . In contrast to more skeptical readings, some can approach the letter of the text as God’s word, venerating the grammar. Nevertheless, if the grammarian fails to embrace the text’s message, he or she may miss the forest for the trees, a myopic approach about which Jesus warned (Matt 23:23//Luke 11:42).

24 . See, e.g., Oliverio, Hermeneutics, 51; Moore, “Approach,” 12; Archer, “Retrospect and Prospect,” 133; cf. Clarke, “Wine Skins,” 180. Recent hermeneutical emphasis on readers has highlighted this subjective, experiential dimension of interpretation (Wyckoff, Pneuma, 87).

25 . Menzies, “Methodology,” 12–13 (as cited in Stronstad, “Trends”; Archer, “Retrospect and Prospect,” 143), suggests that experience, while not itself the source of theology, should be able to verify biblical teachings in believers’ lives. If “verification” sounds too modernist (and hence too culturally and historically specific; cf. the concern in Archer, “Retrospect and Prospect,” 147), walking in the reality of one’s condition, at least, is a biblical concept (Rom 6:11; 1 Cor 6:11). One may compare Wesley’s role for experience, subordinate to Scripture, in what subsequent interpreters have called the Wesleyan Quadrilateral (also valuing Spirit-guided reason and tradition; for how some Pentecostal hermeneutics drew on this, see Oliverio, Hermeneutics, 127–28). Wesley deemed experience the strongest evidence for Christian faith apart from Scripture, and by this he meant that he experienced what Scripture described.

26 . This is pointed out by my friend Darrell Bock, who belongs to moderate cessationist circles, but in practice we share very similar hermeneutical approaches. Darrell articulates the importance of moving from experience to the text and vice-versa (personal discussion, Nov. 19, 2015).

27 . In this sense, preunderstanding simply recognizes that the interpreter begins with a hypothesis, but that this hypothesis remains open to falsification and adjustment (Hirsch, Validity, 260).

28 . Nearly all scholars today recognize that no interpreter comes without presuppositions; see, e.g., Dilthey, Pattern, 81; Bultmann, “Exegesis”; Thiselton, “New Hermeneutic,” 86; Klein, Blomberg, and Hubbard, Introduction, 7; Fiorenza, “Hermeneutics,” 361 (using this to argue for using liberative assumptions, 378–81); Green, Seized, 24–25; Bauer and Traina, Inductive Bible Study, 34–36; Spawn and Wright, “Cultivating,” 191–92; Archer, Hermeneutic, 223.

29 . Osborne, Spiral, 412.

30 . Thiselton, Horizons, 11; cf. also 12, 15.

31 . Thiselton, Horizons, 436.

32 . Thiselton, Horizons, 436–37. Stanley, Diffusion, 222, also cites this passage and marks it as a major step forward in evangelical hermeneutics.

33 . Cf. Ervin, “Hermeneutics,” 33, as cited in Fogarty, “Hermeneutic”; Abraham, Revelation, 101, 108–11 (as cited in Spawn, “Principle,” 51); also charismatic experiences in Spawn, “Principle,” 62, 71; Thomas, “Spirit Is Saying,” 121; cf. Boda, “Walking,” 169; Lewis, “Epistemology.”

34 . Wesley allowed experience a role in interpretation (later articulated in the “Wesleyan Quadrilateral”), although subordinate to Scripture itself.

35 . E.g., Keener, Paul; idem, “Perspective”; Keener, “Learning”; Belleville, Leaders; Pierce, Groothuis, and Fee, Discovering. Contrary views may be found in, e.g., Piper and Grudem, Recovering; Köstenberger, Schreiner, and Baldwin, Women.

36 . On earlier restorationists’ influence on early Pentecostal identity, see, e.g., Archer, Hermeneutic, 150–56; briefly, Blumhofer, Popular History, 16–18. Early Pentecostals viewed their revival as continuing or even completing the restoration of the church begun in the Reformation (Oliverio, Hermeneutics, 76).

37 . Cf., e.g., the emphasis on original context in Bartholomew, Hermeneutics, 195–97. Many restorationists had an ahistorical approach (lacking sufficient appreciation for history or historical context as venues for divine activity), but the initial impetus of restorationism was in a sense the opposite. Christians who do not accept that “the Church” is always progressing toward greater truth (for various views, see Toon, Development ) must regularly call Christians back to foundation documents. The idea that the church progresses toward truth, rather than must be periodically called back to it, may fit the late-nineteenth-century ethos of postmillennialism among Protestants and social evolution among some others. At the same time, restorationists’ emphasis on actively calling the church back to truth may also fit the dominant Arminianism of much popular nineteenth-century evangelicalism.

38 . The exception might be churches that regard tradition also as directed by the Spirit (see discussion in Toon, Development ), but most do not put multivocal tradition on the same level as Scripture itself.

39 . On using Psalms today, see, e.g., Longman, “Honest”; combined with reception history, see, e.g., Waltke, Houston, and Moore, Psalms.

40 . In personal conversation in 2013, an old acquaintance of Heidi Baker complained to me that Dr. Baker saw God working even in the smallest details, matters that were not miracles by usual definitions. I suspect that God has honored this attitude, because God is often doing much more visible works through Heidi and her husband Rolland now (cf. Brown, Mory, Williams, and McClymond, “Effects”; Brown, Testing Prayer, 194–233).

41 . As noted in Keener, Mind of the Spirit, 188: “Fleshly critical evaluation stands outside dependence on Christ and suspends belief, working from other, often unacknowledged, world-views; Spirit-filled evaluation starts with the premise of faith and critically evaluates what is not in accordance with God’s trustworthy revelation.” My atheistic background simplified evaluating theistic evidence critically, but recognizing the conflict between this scholarly approach and my new, personal, living faith in Christ took some time.

42 . For biblical knowledge of God in terms of relationship and engagement with God, see Johns and Johns, “Yielding,” 35–40 (esp. 35–37); Ellington, “Authority,” 160 (citing Pinnock, “Spirit in Hermeneutics,” here 5); in Johannine epistemology, Keener, “Knowledge” (esp. 30–43); idem, John, 1:233–47.

43 . As noted in Keener, Miracles, 2:623–29, see, e.g., Hall, “Attendance,” 106, 108; Wong et al., “Factors”; Ellison et al., “Involvement”; Heuch, Jacobsen, and Fraser, “Study” (among Seventh-Day Adventists, not surprisingly); Comstock and Patridge, “Attendance”; Matthews and Clark, Faith Factor, 158–61; Koenig, Medicine, 129–45; Lutgendorf et al., “Participation”; Musick, House, and Williams, “Attendance and Mortality”; Bagiella, Hong, and Sloan, “Attendance as Predictor”; Strawbridge et al., “Attendance”; Strawbridge et al., “Strength”; Cour, Avlund, and Schultz-Larsen, “Religion”; Hill et al., “Attendance and Mortality”; Helm et al., “Activity”; Krause, “Support”; Van Ness, Kasl, and Jones, “Religion”; Yeager et al., “Involvement”; Ironson et al., “Spirituality” (regarding AIDS); Eng et al., “Ties”; Oman et al., “Attendance”; Sears and Wallace, “Spirituality”; but cf. the more ambiguous results among Israelis in Kraut et al., “Association”; and negative results in Wrensch et al., “Factors” (though the sample size was fewer than 600 patients in one county). High attendance’s association is indirect through lower levels of Interleukin–6 (Thoresen, “Health,” 8). On will to live and “mature” religion, see Hedgespeth, “Power.” Most conspicuously, note Adventists in Matthews and Clark, Faith Factor, 22; Koenig, Medicine, 109, 124–25.

44 . Cf. anecdotal examples of coping with terminal illness in Lesslie, Angels, 45–46, 222–23.

45 . Other Pentecostal and charismatic scholars have also noted many of the same features. See, for example, Martin, “Introduction,” 5–9 (citing also Ellington, “Locating”; Green, Theology, 182–83), emphasizing the presence of the Spirit, canonical reading, entering the biblical narrative, revelatory experience, theological approach to narrative, christological focus, congregational community (esp. in Christian preaching), and eschatological reading.

46 . Although Stibbe, “Thoughts,” is from 1998, I discovered and read it only after I had structured and written nearly all of this book; that is to say, where our observations overlap they are mutually reinforcing. Our applications differ, however; although his suggestion that the Toronto Blessing might be like a fourth wave in Ezek 47 is stated as a tentative analogy (182), I believe his language goes beyond normal analogy (193).

47 . Stibbe, “Thoughts,” 182–84.

48 . Stibbe, “Thoughts,” 184–85. Stibbe draws a different kind of analogy than what I emphasize later, however, emphasizing the pesher approach (184–85); but Stibbe also now recognizes the vulnerability of such an approach (185).

49 . Stibbe, “Thoughts,” 185–87. Following J. Rodman Williams (Theology, 2:241–42), Stibbe (Stibbe, “Thoughts,” 186) appropriately notes the value of sharing the biblical authors’ experience of God, but he also appeals to an interpretation of “the global charismatic community” that is open to question exegetically (186).

50 . Stibbe, “Thoughts,” 187–88.

51 . Stibbe, “Thoughts,” 188–89.

52 . Stibbe, “Thoughts,” 189–91, rightly emphasizing that the biblical message engages the whole person and following Jonathan Edwards (Affections ) and McQueen, Joel and Spirit, 111–12.

53 . Stibbe, “Thoughts,” 191–92.

54 . Green, Practicing Theological Interpretation, 2, explains that theological interpretation, Latino/a exegesis, and other perspectival approaches are interests, not methods.

55 . Note the range of definitions in Wyckoff, Pneuma, 5, 65–68; cf., e.g., Archer, Hermeneutic, 192, insisting on the importance of “what the text means today.” For Vanhoozer, Meaning, 264–65, the “fuller meaning” stemming from divine authorship functions fully only at the canonical level, supervening on rather than contradicting the human authors’ intention.

56 . In at least some cultural settings, inductive study of the biblical text functions as a more effective tool for evangelism and discipleship; see Trousdale, Movements.

57 . This is true even if one takes most superscriptions as authentic, which I am not inclined to do. By contrast, we can of course take into account general settings, such as ancient Near Eastern literary forms or the Hebrew language.

58 . For the evocative use of the language of psalms, see Brueggemann, Praying, 28, as cited in Ellington, “Authority,” 167; for their emotive quality, see Martin, “Psalm 63,” esp. 265, 268. When I pray using psalms, my prayers quickly turn to analogous issues in my life or the world today, e.g., for the persecuted church. Some hermeneutical approaches seek to elucidate affective evocation; see, e.g., D’Sa, “Dhvani”; Soares Prabhu, “Reading.” Much ancient poetry was for purely aesthetic purposes (Quint. Inst. 10.1.28), but the psalms were for worship.

59 . Also in Scripture; see, e.g., John 4:23–24; Eph 5:18–20; Phil 3:3; cf. 1 Kgs 3:15; 1 Chr 25:1–2; 1 Cor 14:15; Col 3:16.

60 . For the importance of both affective and cognitive dimensions of appropriating the text see Johns and Johns, “Yielding,” 34–35, 40–41; Thomas, “Spirit Is Saying,” 121–22. Many today follow the Stoic aversion to pathos, but Paul in Acts 20:31 did not (for Paul and pathos, see Kraftchick, “Πάθη, ” esp. 61–63; Sumney, “Rationalities”; Anderson, Rhetorical Theory, 181–82; Martin, “Voice of Emotion,” 181–202; Keener, Acts, 3:3050–52). On the affective dimension, see also Martin, “Psalm 63,” 265–69, on 266 citing earlier models in e.g., Edwards, Affections; Wesley in, e.g., Collins, “Topography.” See further Baker, “Pentecostal Bible Reading,” who notes (on 98–100) Barthes, Pleasure, esp. 14, but finds more relevant the model of Clapper, Wesley, esp. 85, 154–56.

61 . Mulholland, Shaped, 22.

62 . Cf. Beck, “Anonymity”; idem, Paradigm (e.g., 144).

63 . For one charismatic scholar’s countering of cessationist approaches on John 14, see Brown, Authentic Fire, 188–90.

64 . For the Spirit’s teaching role, see, e.g., Boda, “Word and Spirit,” 41; Keener, John, 2:977–82; Wyckoff, Pneuma, passim. Nevertheless, the Johannine anointing does not invite a wholly individualistic interpretation that rejects the gift of teachers in Christ’s body (see 1 John 1:2; 2:19; 4:6; cf. Rom 12:7; 1 Cor 12:28–29; Eph 4:11; 2 Tim 1:11), a point also emphasized by Calvin against “enthusiasts” (Wyckoff, Pneuma, 28–29).

65 . See my concern in John, xxviii-xxix. Although I am not a deconstructionist, Moore, “Cadaver,” 270, is right that biblical scholars tend to “dissect” texts like cadavers rather than feeding on them. For one discussion of the Johannine images of eating and drinking, see Webster, Ingesting Jesus, 53–64.

66 . See esp. Goulder, Type and History; more carefully, Talbert, Patterns; Tannehill, Luke; idem, Acts; also Keener, Acts, 1:550–73; Edwards, “Parallels.”

67 . See Keener, Acts, 1:645, 651–53, and views cited there.

68 . See Keener, Acts, 1:708; 4:3758–62; cf. also Dunn, Acts, 278; Rosner, “Progress,” 232–33; Cayzer, “Ending”; Marguerat, “Enigma of Closing,” 304; Moles, “Time,” 117.

69 . Perhaps partly because of our experience with erratic and erroneous charismatic revelatory claims, some of us older charismatics are particularly keen to emphasize objective boundaries.

70 . See, e.g., Thomas, “Women,” 85; Pinnock, “Work of Spirit,” 236.

71 . Baker, “Pentecostal Bible Reading,” 95, compares, probably half-facetiously, the frequent critical approach to the passionless experience of many schizophrenic patients, for whom a brain anomaly causes anhedonia. For a helpful Christian approach to emotion, see Elliott, Feelings.

Notes to Chapter 2

1 . Earlier biblical echoes include the Isaianic mission recalled in Acts 1:8 (see Pao, Isaianic Exodus, esp. 85, 92); the ministry transition from Elijah to Elisha (2 Kgs 2:9–15 in Acts 1:8–11; see Keener, Acts, 1:713–19, esp. 713, 715, 719); the echoes of theophanies in 2:2–4 (see discussion in Keener, Acts, 1:801–3); the table of nations and scattering at Babel, from Gen 10–11, in Acts 2:5–13 (see discussion in Keener, Acts, 1:841–44); and, in 2:17–39, explicit references to Joel, the Davidic line, and Psalms 16 and 110 (on Luke’s use of David allusions, see further Strauss, Messiah) .

2 . On the promise being for all peoples and not limited to the eleven apostles, see discussion in Keener, Acts, 1:696, 987.

3 . On Pentecost in Acts 2 producing a new way of reading (without rejecting traditional Jewish approaches), see also Martin, “Introduction,” 2.

4 . Dilthey emphasized shared humanity as an element of preunderstanding that enables readers to identify with historical persons (Dilthey, Pattern, 66–67, 70; cf. Rickman, Dilthey, 141–42; idem, “Introduction,” 39–41). Here I speak of a further element of shared common ground in Scripture, because we as believers recognize the same divine Person both in Scripture and in prayer; for sharing an element of the divine mind in terms of insight (but not common identity), see, e.g., my Mind of the Spirit, 205–6. Jonathan Edwards went further; see McClymond and McDermott, Theology of Edwards, 422–23; Hastings, Edwards and Life of God.

5 . To the pure the Lord reveals his purity, but he renders to each according to their heart (cf. Ps 18:25–26); whoever wants to do God’s will will find it (John 7:17), and whoever does what is true finds the light (John 3:20–21). On a popular level, I address knowing God’s heart and voice in Keener, Gift, 17–50.

6 . For the custom evoked here, see Gordon, Near East, 229–30; Friedman, “Israel’s Response,” 202; Yamauchi, “Adultery,” 20; Harrison and Yamauchi, “Clothing,” 326; cf. Tacitus Germania 19.

7 . Keener, John, 1:207–14, 358–63.

8 . See Keener, “Knowledge”; idem, “Pneumatology.”

9 . Keener, John, 2:1035–43, esp. 1038. I revisit the relevance of John 16 in chapter 11 of the present book: “An Epistemology of Word and Spirit.”

10 . See also McKay, “Veil”; Wyckoff, Pneuma, 76.

11 . Cf. Nebeker, “Spirit.” Through transformational reading and meditation the Spirit thus conforms us to Christ’s image, to our originally intended image in Adam—to the purpose we were designed for.

12 . McKay, “Veil,” 74.

13 . McKay, “Veil,” 77. Cf. a similar tension described (but more fully resolved) by Moore, “Fire of God,” 117–18; also Spittler, “Enterprise,” 76, recognizing the legitimacy of historical-critical methodology for historical methods but its inadequacy for faith and the life of the community.

14 . E.g., narratives about Rahab and Gibeonites, or the utter insanity of the Canaanites warring against Israel’s God instead of fleeing (Josh 11:20, which implies that they might have survived otherwise). See further e.g., Paul Copan, Is God a Moral Monster? Making Sense of the Old Testament God (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2011); Hubbard, Joshua, 42–48; Dallaire, “Joshua,” 841–45; Colesan, “Joshua,” 13–17; my own thoughts at http://www.craigkeener.com/slaughtering-the-canaanites-part-i-limiting-factors/ ; http://www.craigkeener.com/-slaughtering-the-canaanites-part-ii-switching-sides/ ; http://www.craigkeener.com/slaughtering-the-canaanites-part-iii-gods-ideal/ ; cf. also http://www.craigkeener.com/slaughtering-the-benjamites-i-benjamins-depravity-judges-191-2028/ ; http://www.craigkeener.com/slaughtering-the-benjamites-ii-merciless-anarchy-judges-2029-2125/ .

15 . I treat the historical context in Keener, Marries Another; briefly, idem, “Adultery”; idem, “Remarriage.”

16 . For missional reading of Scripture, see, e.g., Wright, Mission.

17 . With Miller, Empowered for Mission, 62, 69; Hernando, “Function,” 247–48.

18 . For the Spirit and mission in Acts, see, e.g., Hull, Spirit in Acts; Marshall, “Significance of Pentecost”; Stronstad, Charismatic Theology; Shelton, Mighty in Deed; Penney, Missionary Emphasis; Hur, Reading, 275; Haya-Prats, Believers, 97–108, 192; Bovon, Theologian, 198–238; Meagher, “Pentecost Spirit”; Klaus, “Mission,” 574–75; cf. Bruce, “Holy Spirit in Acts”; Russell, “Anointing”; Wyckoff, “Baptism,” 448–49; Robinson and Wall, Called, 122; Keener, “Power.”

19 . With, e.g., Green, “Repetition,” 292.

20 . With, e.g., Johnson, Acts, 30; Stronstad, Charismatic Theology, 20–21.

21 . Granted, this is Luke’s distinctive emphasis, but it is not unique to him (Matt 10:20; Mark 13:10–11; John 15:26–27; 20:21–22; Rom 15:19; 1 Cor 12:7; 1 Thess 1:5–6; 1 Pet 1:12; Rev 19:10).

22 . Palmer, Hermeneutics, 87–88, as cited in Thiselton, “Hermeneutics,” 161.

23 . I say “sometimes” because various biblical works directly address anyone from fallen Israel (e.g., Amos) to sharers in ministry (e.g., Titus). Cf. Green, Practicing Theological Interpretation, 42, for God’s people as a shared context.

24 . For interest in the spiritual experience behind the text, see Fee, Listening, 11 (we should seek empathy with the authors’ spirituality); this sort of background certainly should be, though in a different way, no less valuable than “cultural background.” See, e.g., the identification with Isaiah’s experience in Isa 6 narrated in Grey, Crowd, 68–69, a pneumatic application that I would affirm. Various popular Pentecostal readings in Grey, Crowd, 69–76, helpfully evoke various genuine elements of the Isaiah passage, although most do not embrace the full context; cf. helpfully 176–79.

25 . See Keener, Acts, 3:3083–84.

26 . Indeed, Hannah was not even praying for revival, but simply for a son and thus vindication; but God is near the humble (1 Sam 1:10–11). In Luke-Acts, outpourings of the Spirit often followed prayer (Acts 1:14; 4:31; see the principle in Luke 11:13).

27 . See here McKay, “Veil,” 64–68. McKay’s PhD was from Cambridge. Cf. also Moore, “Fire of God,” 114–17.

28 . Although concrete ancient sources are best, contemporary Middle Eastern culture normally remains closer to ancient Middle Eastern culture than is Western culture (Bailey, Peasant Eyes, xv). Some common elements also dominate much of Mediterranean culture (Gilmore, “Shame,” 3, 16), though significant variation must not be overlooked (Eickelman, Middle East, 154). Nevertheless, subsequent movements, not least monotheistic religions, have reshaped local cultures (see Stanley Brandes in Brandes, “Reflections,” 126, on Mediterranean culture; Eickelman, Middle East, 9–10, 97, on the Middle East).

29 . Cf. McKay, “Veil,” 66–67, on “shared experience”; cf. Pinnock, “Work of Spirit,” 246, on being unable to understand Scripture’s words adequately without understanding “the realities that are behind them”; Ellington, “Authority,” 162, on Scripture being “re-experienced in the same setting in which it was originally formed, that is, in the community of faith.” On Dilthey, see discussion on p. 290 in the present book; cf. p. 45, 316n4. For readings from a traditional Middle Eastern perspective, see, e.g., Kenneth Bailey, Poet; idem, Peasant Eyes.

30 . McKay, “Veil,” 68. Cf., for example, how witnessing miracles changed much of the worldview of Walter Wink, a member of the Jesus Seminar (Wink, “Write,” esp. 4–6).

31 . McKay, “Veil,” 69, citing 1 Cor 13:9; 14:32.

32 . E.g., in fall 1978 I gave a prophecy to a divorcée for whom my words meant more than I could have imagined (she informed me only afterward of her status); see Keener and Keener, Impossible Love, 24–25.

33 . On humility before God in reading, see, e.g., Mulholland, Shaped, 59; for this insistence in early Pentecostalism, see Oliverio, Hermeneutics, 91 (D. W. Kerr’s “poor in spirit”).

34 . With e.g., Archer, Hermeneutic, 23–29, following George Marsden and others; Grey, Crowd, 26.

35 . Cf., e.g., the early Methodist who reportedly hurled her cousin’s cards into the fire, provoking him to heed God’s call (Wigger, Saint, 44).

36 . Note the case for many healings today, e.g., Währisch-Oblau, “Healthy,” 97; Chevreau, Turnings, 16–17; MacNutt, Healing, 26–27; Bomann, Faith in Barrios; idem, “Salve.” For revivals especially flourishing in times of social upheaval, see Shaw, Awakening, 25–28.

37 . See, e.g., Noll, History, 167; Wolffe, Expansion, 58–61.

38 . See, e.g., Noll, History, 174–75; Wolffe, Expansion, 71–78.

39 . Shaw, Awakening, 22.

40 . Shaw, Awakening, 22–23. On Pandita Ramabai and her ministry, see, e.g., Burgess, “Pandita Ramabai”; Arles, “Study”; idem, “Appraisal”; Frykenberg, Christianity in India, 382–410.

41 . See Shaw, Awakening, 33, 39.

42 . As John Wesley noted, God’s Spirit produces diligence and thrift, which leads to wealth, but in time this upward mobility can produce generations dependent on prior generations’ blessings. If God has blessed some of us with upward mobility that our forebears in revival lacked, we must use it wisely (1 Tim 6:17–19); we dare not risk losing the special connection with the poor and broken. We may serve and empower them, but we are also blessed by them; they have something that we too need. Cf. Sanders, Margins.

43 . Noll, History, 288.

44 . Shaw, Awakening, 163–65.

45 . In light of the global pentecostal population, Waddell, “Hearing,” 187, affirms Pentecostal readings as “from the bottom or from the margins,” as with liberation theology, citing helpfully Johns, Pentecostal Formation.

46 . The chart here follows my class notes, but cf. helpfully Danker, New Age, 24.

47 . For the risk to Joseph of Arimathea’s life, see Keener, John, 2:1160–61.

48 . Joseph of Arimathea may have been (Matt 27:57; John 19:38) or become a disciple, but it is unlikely that he followed Jesus during the majority of his ministry in Galilee.

49 . See, e.g., Wyckoff, Pneuma, 18, though contrasting the approach of Aquinas (19–20). The particular expression reflects Anselm.

50 . Wyckoff, Pneuma, 22–23; Wengert, “Luther,” 110. So also the Westminster Confession, as noted in Wyckoff, Pneuma, 31.

51 . Edwards, “Revolution,” 53, quoting one of Luther’s final writings.

52 . Wyckoff, Pneuma, 47. For God’s Word coming to humans as “the subjective reality of revelation,” Wyckoff, Pneuma, 48, cites Barth, Church Dogmatics, 1.2.1–25, 203–40, 717.

53 . See esp. Part III.

54 . Pentecostals read Scripture not exclusively for information, “but to meet God in the text”—see Davies, “Read as Pentecostal,” 251–52 (also cited in Anderson, Ends of Earth, 122); Waddell, “Hearing,” 184; Thomas, “Spirit Is Saying,” 122; Archer, Hermeneutic, 251; Grey, Crowd, 3, 10, 15–21, 161; Martin, “Psalm 63,” 280–81, citing a range of sources, including early Pentecostal figures and Green, Theology, 289.

55 . Oliverio, Hermeneutics, 97, on D. W. Kerr.

56 . The same devotional desire appears in other non-Pentecostal but Spirit-led writers such as R. A. Torrey and A. W. Tozer; see also Mickelsen, Interpreting the Bible, 365–66; Mulholland, Shaped, 21, 95; Green, Practicing Theological Interpretation, 5.

57 . Mulholland, Shaped, 123; cf. Wesley on reading to discover God’s will, 127.

58 . See the complaint of Chan, Grassroots Asian Theology, 22–27. This observation is not meant to diminish the value of the academic voices; the grassroots may be influenced by popular Western or other ideologies that are unhelpful. It is simply a reminder that we must use our gifts as servants, not lording it over God’s flock.

59 . Cf. discussion of the latter rain motif in Archer, Hermeneutic, 136–50. For the shift from Latter Rain to more dispensational approaches, see, e.g., Oliverio, Hermeneutics, 114; Myer Pearlman more helpfully pointed toward the biblical metanarrative of redemption (Oliverio, Hermeneutics, 122–23, 129).

60 . For their traditional self-understanding as eschatological, see, e.g., Anderson, Ends of the Earth, 61; Menzies, Anointed, 57; Blumhofer, Sister, 209; Waddell, “Hearing,” 179–80, 187; Martin, “Psalm 63,” 284; for the connection between their “missionary enthusiasm” and their “sense of eschatological destiny,” see Anderson, Ends of the Earth, 62. Eschatological urgency unfortunately also reduced early missionary preparation, however (84). Some, such as Aimee Semple McPherson, viewed women preachers as “a legitimate part of the end-times church” (Blumhofer, Sister, 195); cf. Acts 2:17–18.

61 . In recent centuries, see, e.g., Luther and early Puritans in Kyle, Last Days, 55, 61–62, 65; Gritsch, “Reformer,” 35; early Baptists in Hayden, “Walk,” 8; Edwards in “God’s Wonderful Working,” 15; Booth in Green, “Booth’s Theology,” 28; the Jesus movement in Eskridge, Family, 85–87; cf. Joseph Smale in Robeck, Mission, 83.

62 . Although Eph 4:11–13 is always the ideal, the importance of revealing God’s wisdom in the church “now” (3:10) may suggest that God plans for this ideal to be exemplified at least once in this age, perhaps in circumstances such as those in which God’s ideal people are depicted in Rev 12:10–11, 17.

63 . See Keener, Mind, chap. 5. Cf. Mulholland, Shaped, 135.

64 . See Keener, Mind, chap. 6. On 1 Cor 2:10–16, see also, briefly, Wyckoff, Pneuma, 142; Ervin, “Hermeneutics,” as cited in Spawn and Wright, “Emergence,” 6; esp. Pinnock, “Work of Spirit,” 240. For reading Scripture from new “perceptual frameworks,” cf. also Mulholland, Shaped, 33.

65 . For this image for eschatological tribulation, cf. 1QHa XI, 3–18; 1 En. 62:4; b. Sanh. 98b; Šabb. 118a; see origins for eschatological travail, for the Messiah and/or the community, in Isa 26:17–19; 66:7–8; Mic 5:2–4. The traumatic image of “birth pangs” develops judgment language (Ps 48:6; Isa 13:8; 21:3; 26:17; 42:14; Jer 4:31; 6:24; 13:21; 22:23; 30:6; 31:8; 48:41; 49:22, 24; 50:43; Hos 13:13; also Glasson, Advent, 175; cf. further 1QHa XI, 8, 12; XIII, 30–31; 4Q429 1 IV, 3). See also Keener, “Charismatic Reading.”

66 . In this section I am adapting Keener, Acts, 1:877–80.

67 . Cf. Joel 4:1 LXX (ET 3:1). With, e.g., Ridderbos, “Speeches of Peter,” 13; Horton, Spirit, 146. Greco-Roman audiences would also be familiar with the practice of adapting quotations to clarify their intention (Stanley, Language of Scripture, 291; cf. 335, 337, 342–44).

68 . Also 11Q13 II, 4; 1 En. 27:3–4 (after the final judgment); cf. 4Q509 II, 19; 2 Bar. 76:5; Test. Zeb. 8:2; 9:5. Jewish interpreters of this era would also so understand Deut 4:30; 31:29; cf. others’ restoration in Jer 48:47; 49:39. The “last days” or “last generation” is a natural feature of the pesharim (e.g., 1QpHab I, 2; II, 5–6).

69 . Also 1Q22 I, 7–8; 4QpNah 3–4 III, 3; 4Q162 II, 1 in its context; 4Q163 23 II, 3–11; 4Q176 12 + 13 I, 9; 4QMMT C.21–22; Test. Dan 5:4; Test. Zeb. 9:5; Test. Iss. 6:1; cf. Sib. Or. 5.74; Apoc. Elij. 1:13.

70 . See Test. Iss. 6:1; also 1Q22 I, 7–8; 4QpNah 3–4 III, 3; 4Q162 II, 2–7; 4Q390 1 7–9; 1 En. 91:7; 3 En. 48A:5–6; 4 Ezra 14:16–18; Sib. Or. 5.74; Test. Naph. 4:1; Test. Dan 5:4; Test. Zeb. 9:5; Sipre Deut. 318.1.10; b. Sanh. 97a; Pesiq. Rab Kah. 5:9. Cf. perhaps 4Q501, line 3.

71 . Wilson, Pastoral Epistles, 16, thinks that 1 Timothy employs “last days” in the Lukan manner.

72 . As in the Qumran scrolls (e.g., 4Q162 I–II, esp. II, 1–10; 4Q163 23 II, 10–11). The Qumran scrolls used their pesher interpretation (in psalms, etc.) to apply much of Scripture to the special situation of the last days, a special era of fulfillment (e.g., 4Q162 I–II; 4Q176 12 + 13 I, 7–9; 4QpNah 3–4 IV, 3; see also 1 En. 108:1); Peter does the same, believing the time of fulfillment has come (Acts 3:18–26). God would expose the wickedness of Israel’s compromising leaders in the end time (4QpNah 3–4 III, 3). For “charismatic exegesis” in Qumran texts, see Wright, “Jewish Interpretation,” 75–91.

73 . Cf. similarly Paul’s expectation of prophecy until Christ’s return in 1 Cor 13:8–13, which I discuss briefly in Keener, Corinthians, 109–10.

74 . That is, in modern theological terms, Luke cannot be a cessationist regarding this prophetic gift of the Spirit. For this passage and the expectation of continuing signs, see also Menzies, “Paradigm.”

75 . It is more likely that the idea of prophecy’s cessation derived from reading into the NT the observed experience of Christians in some subsequent eras, where prophecy was either rare or demonstrably errant. Even this observation must be balanced, however, by the frequency of prophetic phenomena in many other eras of Christian history, including its current frequency in charismatic circles and especially in some regions of the world.

76 . See, e.g., Shogren, “Prophecy.”

77 . See, e.g., Cook, Interpretation, 77–79.

78 . John Orme Mills, as cited in Land, Pentecostal Spirituality, 62, and in Robinson, Divine Healing, 39.

79 . See the influential works Faupel, Everlasting Gospel; Althouse, Spirit.

80 . See Dayton, Roots, 145, 149–52 (distinguishing various contributing threads); King, Disfellowshiped, 59–60. Dayton is probably correct that dispensational influences were strongest in the parts of the movement most directly impacted by rising fundamentalism (see Roots, 146).

81 . Dayton, Roots, 145.

82 . See again Althouse, Spirit. Most organizers of the Assemblies of God at Hot Springs, Arkansas, for example, had Scofield Reference Bibles; for this work’s influence on the early Assemblies of God, see, e.g., Oss, “Hermeneutics of Dispensationalism,” 2, as cited in Campos, “Tensions,” 149n14. For a temporary controversy about the book, see McGee, People of Spirit, 192–93.

83 . R. A. Torrey learned this from the example of George Müller (so King, Moving Mountains, 28). On the nature of faith, see also Moreland and Issler, Faith.

84 . I speak here of “hard” cessationists in a sort of idealized sense. In practice, most cessationists, at least among my friends that I know well, rule out only regular supernatural giftings, not special divine activity. I view this stance as inconsistent biblically and philosophically, but those who hold it are not all “hard” cessationists. Still, even ruling out continuing prophetic messages suggests a radical break with the practice of the entire biblical tradition, without biblical forewarnings of such. Such a break would simplify addressing the frailty of persons who claim such messages and absolve us of the need for discernment, but that is not the biblical approach to such problems.

85 . Our language of “testaments” is really a misnomer, since most of the material in both sections is narrative not directly part of the covenants per se. For one survey of approaches to the relationship between the “testaments,” see Baker, Testaments, 34–176.

86 . Admittedly, the instrumental-music cessationists do produce many of the best acapella singers. And if the power grid ever goes down, no one will be better prepared than the old order Amish.

87 . See Noll, Rise, 190; less dramatically, see Mullin, History, 182–83; Sweeney, Story, 64; cf. other early Methodist figures in Bebbington, Dominance, 51; Wolffe, Expansion, 57–62, 70; Kidd, Awakening, 322; cf. also Baptists (eighty times over in 72 years, in Kidd and Hankins, Baptists, 77). Such figures characterize other periods of revival as well (see the sources cited in Keener, Acts, 1:998nn64–66), such as the Korean revival of 1907 (Lee, “Korean Pentecost,” 81).

88 . Keep in mind that Asbury was not a politically driven or financially endowed bishop; he rode thousands of miles a year to serve all the churches, for very small pay, for the Lord Christ.

89 . From Francis Asbury’s valedictory address of 1813, reproduced in Christian History 114 (2015): 39 (“The patriarch broods over his family’s future”). Rejecting “the Catholic doctrine of the historic episcopacy,” Asbury sought to return to the New Testament’s “true primitive order,” “an apostolic order of poverty and itinerancy” (Cracknell and White, Methodism, 48).

Notes to Chapter 3

1 . Adapted from Keener, Acts, 1:842–44.

2 . E.g., Moule, Messengers, 23; Bruce, Commentary, 64; Dominy, “Spirit, Church, and Mission”; Smith, “Hope after Babel?”; Spencer, Acts, 32–33; Chéreau, “Babel à la Pentecôte”; Venter, Reconciliation, 155; Turner, “Experience,” 32; Kim, “Mission,” 40; Nasrallah, “Cities,” 557; Asamoah-Gyadu, “Hearing”; Wackenheim, “Babel”; cf. B. H. Carroll (1916) in Barr, Leonard, Parsons, and Weaver, Acts, 120.

3 . Cyril Jer. Cat. Lect. 17.16–17 (Martin, Acts, 24); Arator Acts 1 (Martin, Acts, 26); Bede Comm. Acts 2.4 (trans. L. Martin, Bede, 29; also Martin, Acts, 23); see other patristic sources in Marguerat, Actes, 81n45. Early Pentecostals also read their experience as a reversal of Babel (Anderson, Pentecostalism, 44).

4 . See, e.g., Keener, “Tongues,” 181–82. González, Acts, 39, emphasizes here a “second Babel” with a new scattering, underlining appreciation for cultural diversity as opposed to a demand for uniformity (e.g., by causing everyone to understand Aramaic). Cf. more fully Wagenaar, “Kumba.” Similarly, Macchia, “Babel,” envisions a partial reversal but a partial analogy: “a promise/fulfilment relationship between these events, in which only the folly and threat of Babel is reversed at Pentecost but not God’s providential will and purposes” (51).

5 . For this connection in the church’s theology (whether or not Luke noticed it), see, e.g., Cloete and Smit, “Name Called Babel.” Arrington, Acts, 20, treats the allusion as a strong but uncertain possibility.

6 . Various scholars, including Polhill, Acts, 105; cf. Barrett, Acts, 112.

7 . Compare unity of mind in Acts 1:14; 2:46 with “one tongue and voice” in the LXX of Gen 11:1; “every nation under heaven” in Acts 2:5 with “all the earth” in Gen 11:1, 8; the elaboration of Mesopotamian peoples not emphasized elsewhere in Luke-Acts in Acts 2:9 with Gen 11:2, 9; perhaps the honoring of Jesus’s name (Acts 2:21, 38) with those honoring their own in Gen 11:4 (a deliberate contrast with 12:2). Luke’s verb in 2:6 for the crowd’s response in 2:6 likely alludes to language in the common Greek version of the Babel narrative (Gen 11:7, 9; Wis 10:5; cf. also the frequent use of the terms in Philo Conf. 1, 9, 43, 84, 109, 152, 158, and 183–98; esp. 168, 182, 189, 191; Josephus Ant. 1.117). Here it is the audience rather than the language that is confused, but in view of other allusions, this is likely an additional example (perhaps inverting the identity of those confused, to highlight reversal).

8 . Also Goulder, Type and History, 158; Scott, “Horizon,” 530.

9 . For later Jewish comments on the Babel narrative, see, e.g., Jos. Ant. 1.116–18; L.A.B. 7; Sib. Or. 3.98–107; 8.4–5; 11.9–13; y. Meg. 1:9, §1.

10 . Inowlocki, “Rewriting,” finds such a rewriting, for a Gentile audience, in Josephus (who here, as elsewhere, opposes tyranny and prefigures God’s judgment on Jerusalem).

11 . 1QM X, 14.

12 . See, e.g., Safrai, “Synagogue,” 927 (doubting any fixed sequence in the early period); Perrot, “Lecture de la Bible” (some principles of later lectionaries used even if the cycle was not yet in use).

13 . See Charnov, “Shavuot”; cf., cautiously, Moule, Messengers, 23.

14 . Cf. the end of Babel’s curse in the day of judgment (Jub. 10:22), but we should probably not read much into this.

15 . Adapted from Keener, Acts, 1:823–30; see also more fully, Keener, “Evidence”; also Keener, Questions, 69; idem, Gift, 180; idem, “Tongues,” 177–78, 180–81, 183–84; cf. Wrede, Secret, 232; Lenski, Acts, 62–63; Wikenhauser, Apostelgeschichte, 38; Fitzmyer, Acts, 239; York, Missions, 80, 185–86; and esp. Ladd, Young Church, 56; Dupont, Salvation, 52, 59; Stendahl, Paul, 118–19; Kilgallen, Commentary, 16; Kim, “Mission,” 37–40.

16 . Only at Pentecost do others present understand the languages; the speakers may experience tongues as affective worship, as in Paul.

17 . Barrett, Acts, 2:lxxxiv.

18 . Bruce, Commentary, 56.

19 . Cf. Spencer, Acts, 32–33.

20 . For the diversity of revivals, see, e.g., Shaw, Awakening, 203–6.

21 . For its earlier occurrence, see, e.g., Anderson, Pentecostalism, 24–25, 36–37; Hinson, “History of Glossolalia,” 57–66.

22 . Robeck, “Seymour,” 81–89; McGee, “Hermeneutics,” 108–10; idem, Miracles, 135 (Abrams); Wacker, Heaven, 41; Opp, Lord for Body, 152 (on Bosworth); Williams, “Acts,” 219 (on Seymour); Alexander, Fire, 130–31 (Seymour); cf. Robeck, Mission, 178; Jacobsen, Thinking in Spirit, 10; Kalu, African Pentecostalism, 20 (on Abrams). Seymour may have played down the role of tongues rather than denied their inclusion in Spirit baptism (Jacobsen, Thinking in Spirit, 78; Tarr, Foolishness, 379–80); in keeping with his Holiness background, he connected tongues more closely to ethics (see Brathwaite, “Tongues”).

23 . In the early period, note esp. Pandita Ramabai (Burgess, “Evidence,” 33–34; McGee, “Hermeneutics,” 107–8; Hudson, “Strange Words,” 67; Burgess, “Pandita Ramabai,” 195) as well as Minnie Abrams, mentioned above. Many Pentecostal movements in Europe and Latin America are less insistent on tongues than are many other traditional Pentecostals (Spittler, “Glossolalia,” 339).

24 . Blumhofer, Sister, 208–14. In fact, many Pentecostal leaders and scholars have emphasized from the beginning that the focus should not be tongues but empowerment (Wyckoff, “Baptism,” 450, and sources he cites; Robeck, Mission, 163 [on Seymour]; Jacobsen, Thinking in Spirit, 75–80 [esp. on Seymour], 190–91, 287, 289, 354).

25 . See McGee, “Hermeneutics,” 107–10; Jacobsen, Thinking in Spirit, 293, 314–15, 395n4. Doctrinal freedom on issues secondary to the gospel characterized early Pentecostalism (see Lederle, Treasures, 29–31, esp. 29; see also Hollenweger, Pentecostals, 32, 331–36).

26 . See, e.g., Jacobsen, Thinking in Spirit, 62, 84, 95–98, 288–90; Johns, “New Directions”; Horton, Spirit, 157, 216–19, 259–60. This view was pioneered by Charles Parham (Jacobsen, Thinking in Spirit, 19, 48–49) and provided a definite social marker distinguishing Pentecostals from their Holiness kin (288; cf. this function of the early restorationist rhetoric, Nienkirchen, “Visions”), though preoccupation with such “evidence” may reflect modernist epistemological assumptions (Smith, Thinking, 124n1). Some estimate that perhaps 35 percent of Pentecostals have prayed in tongues (Lederle, “Evidence,” 136, though the more recent and extensive figures in Landscape Survey, 55, are closer to 50 percent), statistics probably comparable to first-generation Pentecostals as well (Wacker, Heaven, 41). To at least some degree, Edward Irving in the nineteenth century apparently associated tongues with baptism in the Spirit; see Dorries, “Irving and Spirit Baptism”; Strachan, Theology of Irving; cf. Synan, Voices, 85–87.

27 . Lederle, “Evidence,” 131ff.

28 . In 1918, D. W. Kerr’s insistence on tongues as the initial evidence won out against F. F. Bosworth’s more open view that it was an evidence but not the only one, leading to Bosworth’s departure for the CMA (Oliverio, Hermeneutics, 101n68); today’s climate might have been more inclusive on this point.

29 . Menzies, “Tongues,” on D. W. Kerr; this left room for some early Pentecostal leaders such as J. Roswall Flower, whose tongues experience followed his Spirit baptism experience by weeks or even months (185–86n30; cf. also E.N. Bell’s flexibility in 184–85n29).

30 . Severus of Antioch, in Cat. Act. 10.44 (Martin, Acts, 140), doubted that miracles and such evidences remained necessary in his own day, but he contended that in apostolic times, “those who received holy baptism both spoke with tongues and prophesied in order to prove that they had received the Holy Spirit.” Cf. Aug. Retract. 1.13.7 (PL 32:604–5, cited in Kelsey, Healing, 185); McDonnell and Montague, Initiation, 314 (cited in McGee, “Miracles and Mission”).

31 . E.g., Menzies, Empowered, 254–55. From this he further infers that those who receive the gift of the Spirit “should expect to manifest tongues” (255).

32 . Dunn, Jesus and Spirit, 189. The opposite could be argued in 8:17 (see Keener, Acts, 2:1520–27). But either argument is ultimately from silence.

33 . Dunn, Jesus and Spirit, 189–90. Cf. Catholic scholar Haya-Prats, Believers, 120: “Luke presents glossolalia as the typical manifestation of the Spirit.”

34 . The logical distinction between premise a necessarily leading to conclusion b and the reverse (b leading to conclusion a ) would not have been lost on ancient thinkers (e.g., Hermog. Issues 51.16–22; 52.1–4; Porph. Ar. Cat. 90.12–91.12; cf. another sort of distinction in Epict. Diatr. 1.8.14).

35 . Dunn, Jesus and Spirit, 190–91; cf. similarly Turner, Power, 446–47 (who is also skeptical that early Jewish sources expected any particular “initial evidence,” 448–49); Talbert, Acts, 33, 99; Twelftree, People, 98–99 (any ecstatic or supernatural manifestations). Cf. Nigerian Baptist scholar Caleb Olapido, who notes that when Yoruba Christians are filled with the Spirit, “ecstatic utterances are common” (Development, 108, 112–13, in Barr, Leonard, Parsons, and Weaver, Acts, 133).

36 . Of course, prophetic empowerment should presumably lead at least to prophetic witness, and cross-cultural empowerment should lead to participation in cross-cultural witness. Luke does often report prophetic evidences of this empowerment at the time of the experience, but not in every case. Views thus vary depending on what we make of the incidents where Luke does not report any charismatic phenomena at the moment of reception. Each side, in a sense, argues what to make of certain cases of silence. It is possible that charismatic phenomena at the point of experience represent for Luke an ideal pattern; but Luke does not impose his ideal patterns strictly (compare, e.g., Acts 2:38 with 10:44–48).

37 . See Keener, “Tongues.”

38 . E.g., Anderson, Pentecostalism, 33–34; McGee, Miracles, 61–76; and some sources in the following note on early Pentecostal views of xenoglossia.

39 . See McGee, “Hermeneutics,” 102; idem, “Strategy,” 52–53; Goff, “Theology of Parham,” 64–65; Jacobsen, Thinking in Spirit, 25, 49–50, 74, 76, 97; Robeck, Mission, 41–42, 236–37, 243, 252; see esp. McGee, “Shortcut”; idem, “Logic”; Anderson, “Signs,” 195–99. Before Pentecostalism, some evangelical missions advocates, such as A. B. Simpson, the early Christian and Missionary Alliance, and three members of the famous “Cambridge Seven,” sought missionary tongues, apparently in most cases without success (McGee, “Radical Strategy,” 77–78, 80–83).

40 . See esp. Parmentier, “Zungenreden”; Talbert, Corinthians, 90 (citing Iren. Her. 5.6.1; Chrys. Hom. 1 Cor. 29, on 12:1–11; though noting that this is less common than the glossolalia interpretation, Iren. Her. 5.6.1; Tert. Marc. 5.8).

41 . For some of the exceptions, see Keener, Acts, 1:829; May, Witnesses.

42 . E.g., Wacker, Heaven, 47–51; McGee, People of Spirit, 77–78; Hudson, “Strange Words,” 61–63; Anderson, “Points,” 167; Ma, “Eschatology,” 100 (noting Goff, Fields, 16). Noted leader G. B. Cashwell apparently left the movement in part because xenolalia failed in mission (Alexander, Fire, 141). Note especially the shift in the Indian mission context, after which Garr emphasized that the point was not tongues themselves but how they symbolized baptism in the Spirit (McGee, “Calcutta Revival,” 138–39). The xenolalia interpretation “was already waning by 1906,” shortly after the movement’s beginning (McGee, “Strategies,” 204).

43 . Anderson, Pentecostalism, 190.

44 . Some others have recognized the connection, however, notably including Miller, Tongues Revisited. McGee, Miracles, 102, notes that this emphasis did continue. Certainly Global mission has remained a central issue in Pentecostal theology (with Ma, “Studies,” 62–63); this emphasis has undoubtedly spurred Pentecostalism’s massive growth over the course of the twentieth century.

45 . Cf. at greater length Keener, Questions, 66–76, esp. 69; and esp. idem, Gift, 177–85, esp. 180; and idem, “Tongues.”

46 . Chrys. Hom. 1 Cor. 35.1 (Bray, Corinthians, 138); on the Corinthians exalting it as the first gift, see also Theodoret Comm. 1 Cor. 251. Theodoret (Comm. 1 Cor. 240) believes that these gifts were common in former days and reproves the Corinthians for abusing the gifts by showing off instead of edifying the church.

47 . Bede Comm. Acts 2.3A (Martin, Acts, 22). Cf. Leo the Great Sermons 75.2 (Martin, Acts, 23): in Acts 2:4, “the particular voices of each distinct people become familiar in the mouth of the church.” Origen Comm. Rom. on Rom 1:14 (CER 1:128, 130; Bray, Romans, 28) concludes that Paul was indebted to all peoples because he had received their languages (1 Cor 14:18). Cf. Wesley on tongues at Pentecost as a foretaste of peoples of all languages worshiping God (Wesley, Notes, 396, cited in McGee, Miracles, 61). Much more recently, see, e.g., Packer, Acts, 27: “The gift of tongues (glossolalia ) was symbolic of the world-wide work they were to do (1:8).”

48 . See more fully Keener, “Tongues.”

49 . E.g., Bediako, “African Culture,” 120 (for translation in the vernacular); González, Months, 18; Solivan, Spirit, 112–18; Míguez Bonino, “Acts 2,” 163–64; cf. Keener, “Acts 2:1–21,” 526–27; idem, “Diversity”; Marguerat, Actes, 81; at length, cf. Harms, Paradigms. This application was also important in the early-twentieth-century Azusa Street Revival’s application of Acts (e.g., Robeck, Mission, 88, 137–38; testimony in Horton, Corinthians, 66n29; cf. Synan, Movement, 80, 109–11, 165–69, 172, 178–79, 182–83, 221; Synan, “Seymour,” 778–81; idem, “Legacies,” 148–49; Lovett, “Holiness-Pentecostalism,” 83; Daniels, “Differences”; Jacobsen, Thinking in Spirit, 63, 260–62). Ethnic and class reconciliation is a natural application of the passage (e.g., Yong, Spirit Poured, 94, 169–73; Park, Healing, 130–32; Keener, “Acts 2:1–21,” 526–27; Williams, “Acts,” 219–20 [noting also failures]), and was so applied at Azusa Street (Yong, Spirit Poured, 183) and in early Indian Pentecostalism, although the ethnic or caste status quo often quickly reasserted itself (Yong, Spirit Poured, 56–57); for ethnic reconciliation in a different revival in India in 1921, see Hickson, Heal, 62, 64, 66. In South Africa, see LaPoorta, “Unity,” cited in Tarr, Foolishness, 379–80.

50 . For William Seymour’s multicultural vision, see The Apostolic Faith 1 (1, 1906): 1, cited in Waddell, “Hearing,” 20; cf. Seymour on speaking “all the languages of the world” in Robeck, Mission, 162. Bartleman, Azusa Street, 54, famously noted that “The ‘color line’ was washed away in the blood”; but for the violent response from Jim Crow segregationists that motivated some changes, cf. Bosworth, “Beating.”

51 . Cf. 2 Macc 4:10, 13, 15; 6:9; 11:24; see Keener, Acts, 2:1253–59. For archaeological evidence for Diaspora Jews settling in Jerusalem, see Safrai, “Relations,” 193–94.

52 . Fitzmyer, Acts, 350; see esp. Mussies, “Greek,” 1051–52, and the sources cited there. In these remaining paragraphs of this section I adapt Keener, Acts, 2:1287.

53 . Cf. some Greek names among “the rich and well-educated” (Williams, “Names,” 109), but one’s class would not provide all seven with Greek names unless they really were Hellenists, which fits the point of the story (Acts 6:9).

54 . Leon, Jews of Rome, 107–8; also Lung-Kwong, Purpose, 102–3.

55 . Let. Aris. 47–50. Cohen, “Names of Translators,” views Persian names as a mark of the transition from a Persian to a Hellenistic framework, but the document’s Alexandrian provenance suggests Alexandrian expectation (at least in an early period) that Palestinian Jews had varied names.

56 . See y. Giṭ. 1:1, §3.

57 . With Hill, Hellenists, 47.

58 . E.g., Klausner, Jesus to Paul, 289; Bruce, Commentary, 129; Dunn, Acts, 83.

59 . Cf. Dunn, Acts, 84; Simon, Stephen and Hellenists, 7. Leaders in Jesus’s movement can give more “ownership” of the movement (i.e., more participation in its leadership) to leaders of its culturally marginalized minorities when they too are led by God’s Spirit; cf. González, Acts, 92–93.

60 . With Larsson, “Hellenisten und Urgemeinde,” this was more linguistic than due to a less law-faithful theology.

61 . Cf. Hengel, Jesus and Paul, 26.

62 . Cf. Pinnock, “Work of Spirit,” 244: “The best safeguard” for Spirit hermeneutics “is the authority of the charismatic community.” We should note, however, that some individual charismatic communities, pervaded by erroneous teachings and practices (e.g., extreme Word of Faith teachings), need more external input from others listening to God.

Notes to Chapter 4

1 . Others have also noted that, given the makeup of global pentecostalism and the proportion of charismatics in the global church, a “pentecostal” reading should be a global reading (see, e.g., Waddell, “Hearing,” 188).

2 . For the Spirit and teaching, often concerning the right interpretation of Scripture, see, e.g., cf. Acts 20:28; Rom 7:6; 1 Cor 2:13; 12:8; 2 Cor 3:6, 15–18; Gal 3:2–5; 5:18, 22–23; Eph 3:5.

3 . These next three chapters draw on my presentation to the interdisciplinary colloquium for biblical studies and intercultural studies PhD students, Asbury Theological Seminary, Oct. 10, 2014. It is published as Keener, “Scripture and Context,” and I have condensed and adapted here with the permission of the editor, Robert Danielson, March 4, 2015. It includes material condensed from my Miracles, especially in the case-studies chapter. See also insights, including with regard to contextualizing the language of the Spirit, in Harrison, Overwhelmed, 194–96.

4 . Wright, Victory, 359, citing his teacher, G. B. Caird.

5 . Médine Moussounga Keener, Wilmore, KY, Sept. 19, 2012.

6 . Ancient Mediterranean peoples also readily recognized that different peoples had different customs; see, e.g., Cornelius Nepos Generals pref. 5; Plutarch Themistocles 27.2–3; Sextus Empiricus Eth. passim.

7 . This approach is more helpful than viewing texts not directly addressed to one as “dead language” (cf. the view noted in Patte, Structural Exegesis, 5). Besides relevance theory, some other approaches, more directly associated with cross-cultural communication, seek to translate larger cultural concepts. Although more recent and still less widely known in biblical studies than relevance theory, see very insightfully Zhang, “Ethics of Transreading”; Zhang works with biblical as well as other literary texts in various cultures.

8 . Brown, Scripture as Communication, 27, notes that insofar as “texts are culturally located communicative acts, tied to a particular place and time (although with potential for speaking beyond that particularity), then questions of their authors and origins will be relevant for interpretation.” For “A Communication Model of Hermeneutics,” see Brown, Scripture as Communication, 29–56.

9 . Some non-Pentecostals also expect Pentecostals to be particularly sympathetic to the dynamics of inspiration; see, e.g., Dunn, “Role,” 155.

10 . For Scripture being what unites all Christians, see Sunquist, Century, 181, commenting on Bartholomew I Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, to the Synod of Bishops of the Catholic Church, “The Day Will Come When Our Two Churches Will Fully Converge” (Oct. 18, 2008).

11 . See, e.g., Dunn, “Reconstructions,” 296. The ancient Mediterranean world was a “high context” culture that presumed “a broadly shared, generally well-understood knowledge of the context of anything referred to in conversation or in writing” (Malina and Pilch, Letters, 5).

12 . With, e.g., Vanhoozer, Meaning, 242; cf. 249 for Vanhoozer’s application of the concepts of agency and emergence to how authorial intention brings meaning to linguistic signs. Cf. Hirsch, Validity, 23: “What has been denied here is that linguistic signs can somehow speak their own meaning—a mystical idea that has never been persuasively defended”; certainly they lack communicative value to one unfamiliar with the language (134).

13 . Aune, Dictionary of Rhetoric, 317–18.

14 . Brown, Scripture as Communication, 75–76.

15 . See, e.g., Sperber and Wilson, Relevance; idem, “Précis”; Wilson and Sperber, “Representation”; in biblical studies, see, e.g., Jobes, “Relevance Theory”; Brown, Scripture as Communication; Green, “Relevance Theory.” See further discussion in ch. 10.

16 . Looking back on September 1911, that year included the following events: the Russian empire claimed Wrangel Island (Sept. 2); 200,000 Germans protested their government’s militarization (Sept. 3); Mount Etna erupted, leaving an estimated 20,000 Italians homeless (Sept. 11); Boston’s Cy Young achieved his final win (his 511th), setting a long-term record (Sept. 20); three hundred died when the French battleship Liberté exploded (Sept. 25); Italy fought Turkey and invaded Libya (Sept. 29); and seventy-eight died because a dam ruptured in Pennsylvania (Sept. 30; the actual death toll was likely much higher). Probably most dramatically, missions released news of the flooding of China’s Yangtze River, a disaster that may have led to as many as 300,000 deaths.

17 . Walton, Thought, 19, cites examples of “Kent State” (intelligible in the 1980s), the “Berlin Wall,” or the “Iron Curtain.”

18 . This is the purpose for my Keener, Background Commentary.

19 . See, e.g., Sider, Cry Justice; idem, Fed; in Wesley’s teaching, see Jennings, Good News.

20 . Some nineteenth-century abolitionist writers already highlighted these themes; see, e.g., Sunderlund, Testimony; idem, Manual.

21 . I give more detail on this section of John in Keener, John, 1:584–628; more briefly, cf. Keener, “Invitations,” here 195–202; most briefly, idem, “Reconciliation,” 124–25.

22 . E.g., m. Abot 1:5; Ketub. 7:6; t. Shab. 1:14; b. Ber. 43b, bar.; Erub. 53b; cf. Sir 9:9; 42:12; T. Reub. 6:1–2; y. Abod. Zar. 2:3, §1; Sot. 1:1, §7; among earlier Gentiles, cf. Euripides Electra 343–44; frg. 927; Theophrastus Char. 28.3; Livy 34.2.9; 34.4.1.

23 . See, e.g., Justinian Inst. 2.10.6; Josephus Ant. 4.219; m. Yeb. 15:1, 8–10; 16:7; Ketub. 1:6–9; t. Yeb. 14:10; Sipra Vayyiqra Dibura Dehobah pq. 7.45.1.1. For qualifications of this general practice, see Ilan, Women, 163–66; Maccini, Testimony, 63–97.

24 . For arguments against this, see Keener, John, 1:606–8.

25 . Cf., e.g., Gen 24:11; Pizzuto-Pomaco, “Shame,” 50; Eickelman, Middle East, 163.

26 . E.g., Sus 7 (Dan 13:7 LXX); Joseph and Asenath 3:2/3; Life of Aesop 6; Virgil Georg. 3.331–34; Columella Trees 12.1; Plutarch Them. 30.1; Longus 1.8, 25; 2.4; Aulus Gellius 17.2.10; Suetonius Aug. 78.1; Vesp. 21; Pliny Ep. 1.3.1; 7.4.4; 9.36.5. For the heat, see, e.g., Aeschylus Seven Ag. Thebes 430–31; Sophocles Antig. 416; Apollonius Rhodius 2.739; 4.1312–13.

27 . See, e.g., Menander Dyskolos 200; Arrian Alex. 2.3.4; Llewellyn-Jones, Tortoise, 88; cf. Cicero Pro Caelio 15.36; probably Lam. Rab. 1:1, §19.

28 . Cf. consideration in Brant, “Husband Hunting,” 211–16.

29 . See m. Nid. 4:2; t. Nid. 5:1–2; cf. m. Toh. 5:8.

30 . See Bruce, History, 37–38; cf. MacDonald, Theology of Samaritans, 15. The possible exception in Josephus Ant. 18.85–87 is apparently an eschatological prophet, who might be regarded as the prophet like Moses.

31 . For the conflicts over these holy sites, see, e.g., Josephus Ant. 11.310, 346–47; 12.10, 259; 13.74; 18.10; War 1.62–63; 2.237.

32 . For the fluid boundaries “between linguistic and cultural translation,” see Thiselton, Horizons, 131.

33 . For the return of the “implied author” in interpretation, see Brown, Scripture as Communication, 69–72; Osborne, Spiral, 393–95; more extensively, Vanhoozer, Meaning, 201–80. That biblical texts assume cultural information often obscure to modern readers is not a new insight; see, e.g., Ramm, Interpretation, 5–6, 98–99, 133–35, 150–57.

34 . See, e.g., Gutt, Relevance Theory, 33; note above. As one critic suggests, “Every text, even the most elementary, implies information that it takes for granted and doesn’t explain. Knowing such information is the decisive skill of reading” (Hirsch, Literacy, 112). This point is widely accepted by NT critics considering intertextuality with the OT.

35 . Providing background on a popular level was why I offered the first “background commentary” in 1993 (see now Background Commentary ); much will be available on an even more popular level in the NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2016).

36 . For some earlier Western evangelical discussions of contextualization and hermeneutics see, e.g., the essays in Carson, Interpretation; Blomberg, “Globalization”; for some more recent contextual approaches, see, e.g., Jayakumar, Mission Reader; Satyavrata, Witness. For contextualization within the NT itself, see esp. thoroughly Flemming, Contextualization.

37 . Some of these examples reflect a response paper I presented to the Institute of Biblical Research, Orlando, Nov. 1998. Exegesis is a cross-cultural act (deSilva, Global Readings, x).

38 . See more fully my Keener, “Worship.”

39 . Nelson, “Temple,” 147; Scott, “Pattern,” 314; Badawy, Architecture, 176–77. In the Levant, see Gray, “Ugarit,” 146–47; Dever, “Stratifications,” 43.

40 . Nelson, “Temple,” 148–49; Badawy, Architecture, 177.

41 . E.g., Kitchen, “Background,” 8–11; Nelson, “Temple,” 148–49; Meyers, Exodus, 220.

42 . Haran, “Image,” 202, 206.

43 . See, e.g., Murray, Splendor, 183–84; Cassuto, Exodus, 322–23; Gurney, Hittites, 149–50; Meyers, Exodus, 221.

44 . Also contrast the adjoining shrines for tutelary deities in many Egyptian temples (Badawy, Architecture, 180).

45 . See Keener, “Tabernacle,” 838; idem, “Worship,” 130–31.

46 . See, e.g., G. B. Caird, “The Exegetical Method of the Epistle to the Hebrews,” Canadian Journal of Theology 5 (1, 1959): 44–51; cf. J. R. Sharp, “Philonism and the Eschatology of Hebrews: Another Look,” East Asia Journal of Theology 2 (2, 1984): 289–98. Revelation is of course much more comparable to apocalyptic sources, and Hebrews to hellenistic Judaism (cf., e.g., Charles Carlston, “The Vocabulary of Perfection in Philo and Hebrews,” 133–60 in Unity and Diversity in New Testament Theology: Essays in Honor of George E. Ladd [ed. Robert A. Guelich; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1978]), but the author of Hebrews writes on a less sophisticated hellenistic level than does Philo.

47 . For brief discussion, see, e.g., Keener, Corinthians, 80–81. Adapting to local customs could be viewed positively (Cornelius Nepos 7.11.2–6), because it was widely understood that customs varied in different lands (e.g., Apollonius Rhodius 2.1017). Aristocratic ideology regularly opposed, however, any pandering to the masses, which they viewed as demagoguery (e.g., Aristophanes Acharnians 371–73; Frogs 419; Aristotle Pol. 4.4.4–7, 1292a; Diodorus Siculus 10.7.3; Dionysius of Halicarnassus 7.8.1; 7.45.4; 7.56.2; Livy 6.11.7; Appian R.H. 2.9; 3.7.1). Philosophers and moralists who appealed to the masses thus risked alienating those of higher status (Aristotle Rhet. 2.20.5, 1393b; Liefeld, “Preacher,” 39, 59, 162), which Paul probably did in Corinth (cf. Martin, Slavery, 92–116).

48 . Adapting to one’s audience was good rhetoric (Quintilian Inst. 3.7.24; for examples, see Suetonius Rhet. 6; Eunapius Lives 495–96).

49 . See more fully my Keener, “Asiarchs.”

50 . See discussion in Keener, Acts, 3:3113–43, esp. 3141–43.

51 . Cf. Charillus 2 in Plut. Saying of Spartans, Mor. 232C; Valerius Maximus 5.3.10–12; m. Ketub. 7:6; cf. in traditional Middle Eastern culture, Delaney, “Seeds,” 42; Eickelman, Middle East, 165. See more fully Keener, Paul, 19–69; MacMullen, “Women in Public,” 217–18; and esp. Keener, “Head Coverings.”

52 . Cf., e.g., Josephus Ant. 11.276; 2 Bar. 39:4–7; Sipre Deut. 317.4.2; 320.2.3; Tg. Neof. 1 on Gen 15:12. Note also the probable interpretation of Daniel’s Kittim in the latest Qumran texts as Romans; see Dupont-Sommer, Writings, 349; Vermes, “Elements.” Earlier Greeks and Romans envisioned four eastern empires—though replacing Babylon with Assyria—before adding Rome; see Velleius Paterculus Compendium 1.6.6 (though some view this as a gloss); Mendels, “Empires”; cf. Sib. Or. 8.6–11.

53 . E.g., Sib. Or. 5.143, 159–61; probably 1 Pet 5:13 (with Papias frg. 21.2); 4 Ezra and 2 Bar. passim. See discussion in, e.g., Gaster, Scriptures, 318; Kelly, Peter, 218; Kraybill, Cult and Commerce, 149–50.

54 . See, e.g., Sib. Or. 2.18; 11.113–16; Dionysius of Halicarnassus Ant. rom. 4.13.2–3; Varro Latin Language 5.7.41; Ovid Tristia 1.5.69–70; Pliny N.H. 3.5.66; Silius Italicus 10.586; 12.608; Statius Silvae 2.3.21; 4.1.6–7; Symmachus Ep. 1.12.3. For the annual festival celebrating Rome’s founding on these hills, see Suetonius Dom. 4.5.

55 . E.g., Diodorus Siculus 1.4.3; Dionysius of Halicarnassus Ant. rom. 1.9.1; Cicero Phil. 4.6.15.

56 . See, e.g., Bauckham, Climax, 352–66; esp. Pliny N.H. 37.78.204.

57 . I elaborate these questions further in Keener, Paul.

58 . Gutt, Relevance Theory, 73. Recontextualizing is usually more easily accomplished in contextual preaching than in translations that can quickly grow out of date (e.g., the colloquial Cotton Patch Version, helpful as it appears to have been for its setting).

59 . With Hays, First Corinthians, 173, criticizing forced “relevance.”

60 . This is what we have endeavored to produce in the new NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2016). Because the cultural information itself is debatable, and interpretations of passages often dictate which ancient background is most relevant, tools such as this will remain works in progress and always secondary to a passage’s immediate literary context. Nevertheless, our increasing cumulative resources for understanding ancient customs and ideas allows greater precision on many such matters today than has been possible since antiquity itself.

Notes to Chapter 5

1 . Of course, most scholars are much more nuanced in their hermeneutic; see, e.g., Webb, Slaves.

2 . E.g., Craigie, Deuteronomy, 289.

3 . Carson, “Colonialism,” 148–49; Lalitha, “Feminism,” 82. For missionaries’ insistence on local women covering their breasts, see also, e.g., Putney, Missionaries, 41.

4 . Mayers, Christianity Confronts Culture, 204 (cf. 207).

5 . The kiss was a form of greeting widely practiced in ancient Mediterranean culture (e.g., Homer Od. 21.224–27; Euripides Androm. 416; Virgil Georg. 2.523; Ovid Metam. 2.430–31; Artemidorus Oneir. 2.2; 1 Esd 4:47; t. Hag. 2:1); see in more detail Keener, “Kiss.” For head coverings, see comment in the earlier note.

6 . Diog. Laert. 6.2.34–35.

7 . See, e.g., Keener, Matthew, 89–94; idem, “Marriage,” on betrothal, dowry, and other customs.

8 . See also, e.g., Brown, Scripture as Communication, 205.

9 . Malina, Anthropology, 153.

10 . See, e.g., discussion in Head, “Nazi Quest”; see selected documents in Solberg, Church Undone.

11 . Cf. Bonk, “Missions.” An increasing number of theologians today do write in the context of the new global church, e.g., Tennent, Theology; Yong with Anderson, Renewing.

12 . On resurrection in the OT, see esp. Raharimanantsoa, Mort; for debates about Persian influence on this belief, see, e.g., Yamauchi, Persia, 303, 452–61.

13 . Worshiping anyone other than God is prohibited; leading figures in Scripture did, however, employ many conventional expressions of honoring the deceased, at least at the time of their decease (Gen 23:2–20; Mark 14:8; John 19:38–40; Acts 8:2; 9:39).

14 . Davies, “Read as Pentecostal,” 257–58, rightly warns Pentecostals, who gravitate toward texts they find most spiritually meaningful personally, against this danger.

15 . Fuller, “Analogy,” 210, n. 13; cf. Ramm, Interpretation, 55–56; Grant and Tracy, History, 93. See, e.g., his preface to the first edition of the German NT (Mittelstadt, Reading, 1–2n3). Mark Allan Powell explains that, for Luther, Scripture’s center was law (a way of reading that invited fear of God) and gospel (a way of reading that invited love of God; Powell, “Answers”; for Luther’s hermeneutic and its place for the law rightly understood, cf. also Hafemann, “Yaein,” 119; Barclay, Gift, 103, 340). For Reformation-period disputes over which texts remained binding, see Wengert, “Luther,” 93.

16 . With very few exceptions, Confucius’s teachings resemble those of wise sages (such as Proverbs’ Egyptian and Middle Eastern dialogue partners) more than those of a religious system antithetical to Christianity. In fact, traditional Confucian values, in contrast to, say, Western materialism, overlap with traditional biblical values at numerous points. See, e.g., studies by Yeo, Musing; Yeo, “Xin ”; Ten Elshof, Confucius.

17 . The Spirit (Acts 15:28) can also use “debate and deliberation” (cf. 15:6–7) to achieve outcomes (Boda, “Word and Spirit,” 41). Qumran interpreters from the Second Temple period also believed that the Spirit worked in their process of interpretation; see Wright, “Jewish Interpretation,” 91.

18 . Not even rural Middle Eastern followers of Jesus today, although for many parts of the canon they may come closest.

19 . See on the Jesuits, e.g., Spence, Palace; Neill, History of Missions, 162–65, 183–94; Tucker, Jerusalem, 59–66. On William Carey, see, e.g., Christian History 36 (1992); on Hudson Taylor, see, e.g., Christian History 52 (1996).

20 . Isichei, History, 75. Missionaries who did not come from state churches that were aligned with colonial authorities also faced frequent opposition from these authorities, as did indigenous Christian movements like that of Prophet Braide in West Africa; cf., e.g., Sanneh, West African Christianity, 36, 167; Turaki, “Legacy”; Isichei, History, 233; Noll, History, 341. In different periods, church teaching was used for both colonialism and anticolonialism in different periods; cf., e.g., Stuart, Missionaries, 193–94; Sunquist, Century, 18–23.

21 . See, e.g., accounts in Heaney, “Conversion to Coloniality,” 73; Hawk and Twiss, “Indian,” 47–54; Cuéllar and Woodley, “Mission,” 63–69.

22 . For instances of missions’ linkage with colonial conquest, see, e.g., Dussel, History, 41–44, 59; Koschorke, Ludwig, and Delgado, History, 277–89; Irvin and Sunquist, History, 11–21; Deiros, “Cross.”

23 . See, e.g., Keener, “Asia and Europe,” which suggests that Acts 16 depicts the reversal of Greek and Roman colonialism as an Asian faith moves into Europe.

24 . See, e.g., Niang, Faith; deSilva, Global Readings.

25 . See particularly helpfully Yeo, “Cultural Hermeneutics,” 809: although all interpretations are welcome, some are more plausible, and these can be achieved best “through an ever-enlarging process of cross-cultural (global) interpretation.”

26 . Keener and Carroll, “Introduction,” 1.

27 . Keener and Carroll, “Introduction,” 1. These statistics are from Mandryk, Operation World, 3, 5; Hanciles, Beyond Christendom, 121 (noting also that by 2050 “only about one-fifth of the world’s Christians will be white”); see further Johnson and Ross, Atlas; Barrett, World Christian Encyclopedia; and the regular updates in IBMR.

28 . Johnstone, Future, 113.

29 . Johnstone, Future, 125. That Pentecostalism is already so culturally diverse also highlights the continuing need to encourage Pentecostal scholarship from a range of cultures (with Mittelstadt, Reading, 169).

30 . Lee, “Future,” 105. Cf. also Ma, “Shift,” esp. 68–69, on how missiologists a century ago were utterly unprepared for a century of African and Pentecostal growth.

31 . Mullin, History, 211; cf. similarly Noll, Shape, 32.

32 . Berger, “Faces,” 425. Cf. Tomkins, History, 220: “the fastest-growing form of Christianity ever.” For massive church growth associated with miracles already by 1981, see De Wet, “Signs”; since then, e.g., Yung, “Integrity,” 173–75; Moreland, Triangle, 166–67.

33 . Johnson, Barrett, and Crossing, “Christianity 2010,” 36; see further Johnson and Ross, Atlas, 102; more cautiously, Anderson, Pentecostalism, 11. Even if we count just one-third of this figure, the numbers are remarkable.

34 . Laing, “Face,” 165.

35 . Cf., e.g., Nadar, “Feminism,” from a South African Indian womanist perspective, noting that scholars must recognize the Spirit’s role, engage widespread charismatic ideas, and seek to nurture true transformation.

36 . Indeed, ethnocentric assumptions are embedded not only in some historical-critical interests but also in some of their approaches. Thus for example some suggest that the late dating of laws in the traditional Documentary Hypothesis reflects ethnocentric Hegelian assumptions rather than the actual development and dating of laws in ancient Near Eastern cultures; see, e.g., discussions in Harrison, Introduction, 21; Livingston, Pentateuch, 227, 229–30; cf. Whybray, Making, 46–47; Levinson, “Introduction,” 10–11; cf. the philosophic underpinnings of W. de Wette’s earlier nineteenth-century approach in Bartholomew, Hermeneutics, 214–15.

37 . E.g., Keener, Historical Jesus; idem, “Assumptions.” For Pentecostal and evangelical dialogue through historical-critical methodology, see also Cheung, “Study.”

38 . So also Martin, “Hearing,” 212, very helpfully. As Bartholomew, Hermeneutics, 237, suggests, citing R. Alter and F. Kermode, historical criticism used extant biblical literature merely as ruins in which to excavate a more valuable real history behind them, a reconstruction generally eloquently informed by the interpreters’ creative ingenuity.

39 . For postcolonial criticism of the contexts in which traditional historical-critical methods originated, note observations by Segovia, Decolonizing, 119–32, as cited in Agosto, “Foreword,” xiv. Many Western scholars today also challenge the objectivity of the historical-critical paradigm; see, e.g., the summary in Horrell and Adams, “Introduction,” 42; Stanley, “Introduction,” 3.

40 . Lopez, “Visualizing,” 76, citing Sugirtharajah, “Catching,” 176–85; see also the concern in Heaney, “Conversion,” 68–69, 77. Today many voices challenge dominant paradigms’ pretensions to objectivity; see, e.g., Smith, “Tolerance”; Stanley, “Introduction,” 3; Lee, “Nationalism,” 223; Merrick, “Tracing.”

41 . Hays, Reading Backwards, xvi. Skeptical, speculative historical criticism and reconstruction tend to be antitextual; see Green, Practicing Theological Interpretation, 70. My historical Jesus work (Keener, Historical Jesus ) drew heavily on Gospels research, but a survey of historical Jesus scholarship will reveal how much of it takes place without apparent cognizance of much published research on the Gospels.

42 . See Frei, Eclipse, 239, 241–42; cf. 274.

43 . A confusion unfortunately seriously reflected in Davies, “Read as Pentecostal,” 252n10. Confusion might even be reflected in Hays’s criticism of “modernist” interest in “a single clear and explicit ‘original sense’ ” (Hays, Reading Backwards, 30), although I do agree with Hays’s main point in his understanding of parable. The difference is clear in Green, Practicing Theological Interpretation, 45; Archer, Hermeneutic, 69 (in discussing Robert Traina’s method), 221, although at least some confusion may appear in 191. See helpfully the distinction between what Bartholomew calls “thick and thin notions of objectivity” (Bartholomew, Hermeneutics, 415). Archer’s concern appears to be not with using cultural context to clarify the understanding of the text, but with focusing on the never fully recoverable and hypothetically reconstructed world behind the text (see Archer, Hermeneutic, 207).

44 . Or, alternatively, to treating an arbitrarily selected English version, or all English versions (including conspicuously distorted ones such as Watchtower’s version), as no less authoritative than the original text.

45 . Watchman Nee in Kinnear, Tide, 152. Even some who do not share belief in spirits themselves argue that exorcism might constitute the most culturally sensitive therapy for those for whom possession is the most culturally intelligible explanation for their condition; see, e.g., Martínez-Taboas, “Seizures”; Hexham, “Exorcism”; Singleton, “Spirits,” 478; Heinze, “Introduction,” 14.

46 . Thomas, “Women,” 81, noting also (82) the need for academic reflection on the role of the Spirit in interpretation and paradigm shifts in hermeneutics. Cf. Cross, “Proposal,” as cited in Cartledge, “Text-Community-Spirit,” 132.

47 . In Gen 26:29, Abimelech urges Isaac to swear not to harm them, just as they did not “touch” him but sent him away in peace; after making the covenant, they leave Isaac “in peace” (26:31). Their not “touching” him presumably refers to their not touching his wife sexually or harming either of them (26:11; the same verb appears in the other endangered matriarch accounts at 20:6, with a sexual sense, and in 12:17, quite differently for God striking the abusers with a plague). Their sending him away was not entirely friendly, however (26:16; cf. 26:20–21).

48 . See, e.g., my discussion in Keener, “Reconciliation”; idem, “Invitations.” One critic complained that I drew a general principle rather than a concrete application, but apparently did not read the entire article, which certainly gave concrete examples of both, as well as emphasizing justice alongside reconciliation. Finding a shared principle is relevant for making sure that one’s application is truly analogous.

49 . For Derrida, engaged in challenging conventional Western philosophy and ontotheology, there is nothing outside language, which is itself arbitrary (cf., e.g., Derrida, Speech; idem, Writing; Derrida and Stocker, Derrida ). I concur that language is indeed socially constructed; nevertheless, it seeks to communicate referentially. For some biblical scholars’ approach to deconstruction, see Crossan, “Metamodel”; also Semeia ’s theme issue on “Derrida and Biblical Studies” (Semeia 23 [1982]); most helpfully, Moore, Poststructuralism.

50 . See, e.g., Grunlan and Mayers, Cultural Anthropology, 75, 95, citing Chomsky, Structures; cf. Hirsch, Validity, 18–19; Spawn and Wright, “Cultivating,” 193, following Vanhoozer, Meaning, 299–303. This observation is not intended to endorse structuralism, which deconstruction rightly criticized. Because of psychological research into how real readers experience texts, linguists have rejected structuralism and its immediate sequels (Malina, “Reading Theory Perspective,” 13–14); for structuralism’s antihistorical character, see the criticism in Kee, Miracle, 290–91; cf. Sanders, Jesus and Judaism, 128. For language’s limits and texts deconstructing to some degree, see Dio Chrys. Or. 52.7 and examples in widely read ancient sources in Keener, John, 1:38–39, 901n19, and the rhetorical technique in Dio Chrys. Or. 11.

51 . Derrida himself could acknowledge that language “works” for ordinary communication (Vanhoozer, Meaning, 211–12, though Vanhoozer also sees the irony of deconstructionist communication [266n21]; Smith, “Inc/arnation,” 112–19 [as cited in Oliverio, Hermeneutics, 218–19]).

52 . Hirsch, Validity, 10, complains that positing the text’s autonomy from its author leaves the text meaning whatever it means to a given reader.

53 . For examples of various readings from different social locations, see, e.g., Barreto, “Affects What I See”; Keener and Carroll, Global Voices; Patte, Global Bible Commentary. For the value of expanding the range of dialogue partners, see also Gross, Preach, 113; Brown, Scripture as Communication, 89–90; Klein, Blomberg, and Hubbard, Introduction, 148; Lines, “Readings”; even in group Bible study, in Fraser and Kilgore, Friends, 73.

54 . See very helpfully Choi, “Hermeneutics,” 114–17, on the hospitality and dialogue involved in multicultural hermeneutics.

55 . Stanley Fish, for example, apparently values relativism; in the wake of Sept. 11, 2001, he opined that no universal standard of morality exists by which to evaluate either American democratic ideals or Al-Qaida’s ideals (Fish, “Condemnation,” as cited in Collins, Babel, 149–51). If texts could simply be read in any manner, however, repressive governments would not have to ban books (Davies, Matthew, 15).

56 . Cf. Matt 23:8 (when we make disciples, it must be for Jesus, not for ourselves); 2 Cor 4:5.

57 . On supernatural reports in Western church history, see Keener, Miracles, 1:359–425; 2:785–86, 875.

Notes to Chapter 6

1 . Here I am selectively adapting various material from Keener, Miracles, 788–856, passim, with permission from Baker Academic.

2 . Hiebert, “Excluded Middle,” 43. This omission of the preternatural that he notes is traced more fully in Daston, “Marvelous Facts,” 100–113.

3 . Kemp, “Ravished,” 75.

4 . Pilch, Visions, 17.

5 . Bourguignon, “Spirit Possession Belief,” 18; cf. also idem, “Introduction,” 17–19; Firth, “Foreword,” ix; Lewis, Ecstatic Religion, 100–26; Chandra shekar, “Possession Syndrome,” 80; Morsy, “Possession,” 189; Boddy, “Spirit Possession,” 409.

6 . Bourguignon, “Spirit Possession Belief,” 19–21; idem, “Appendix.”

7 . Ward, “Possession,” 126; Pilch, Dictionary, 81–82.

8 . See, e.g., Lewis, Ecstatic Religion, 44; cf. also Maquet, “Shaman,” 3; Peters, Healing in Nepal, 11–16, 46–47, 50.

9 . McClenon and Nooney, “Anomalous Experiences,” 47.

10 . Kim, “Reenchanted,” 270–73.

11 . Neill, “Demons,” 161.

12 . Escobar, Tides, 86.

13 . Mbiti, Religions, 253–56.

14 . Mensah, “Basis,” 176.

15 . Koschorke, Ludwig, and Delgado, History, 223–24; Hanciles, “Conversion,” 170. Harris’s ministry, though influenced by Methodism, ultimately also influenced African Pentecostalism (Ouédraogo, “Pentecostalism,” 163).

16 . E.g., Johnson, “Growing Church,” 55–56; Pothen, “Missions,” 305–8; Ma, “Encounter,” 136; see more fully idem, Spirit.

17 . E.g., De Wet, “Signs,” 84–85; Koch, Zulus, 136–37, 143–44, 144–45, 147–48, 150, 153; Pothen, “Missions,” 189; Park, “Spirituality,” 52–53; Khai, “Pentecostalism,” 269; Knapstad, “Power,” 83–85; Tandi Randa, personal correspondence (May 26, 2012; May 13, 2014). Some converts have, however, retained significant values from their previous practice (Merz, “Witch,” 203, 213).

18 . For the prominence of spiritual power in African exegesis, see, e.g., LeMarquand, “Readings,” 496–97.

19 . Mchami, “Possession,” 17; while conceding that East African interpretation could use more exegesis.

20 . Stoller, “Eye,” 110; as cited in Turner, “Advances,” 41.

21 . Turner, “Advances,” 42.

22 . Graduate Research Professor in anthropology at the University of Florida, visiting professor at the University of Chicago and University of California at Berkeley; and past president of the American Ethnological Society and of the Society for Applied Anthropology.

23 . Kimball, “Learning,” 188–92.

24 . Kimball, “Learning,” 189–90.

25 . Turner, “Advances,” 37. For other claims of apparitions, see McClenon, Events, xiii, 70, 72.

26 . Turner, Hands, xxii; idem, Experiencing Ritual, 149, 159; idem, Healers, 1–23.

27 . Idem, “Reality of Spirits” (from a pro-shamanist perspective).

28 . Turner, Experiencing Ritual, 4.

29 . Tippett, “Possession,” 143–44. For a brief historical overview of anthropological approaches to spirit possession, see Prince, “Foreword,” xi; Crapanzaro, “Introduction,” 5–7; more thoroughly for recent studies, Boddy, “Spirit Possession,” 410–14.

30 . Bourguignon, Possession, 14. Some scholars warn of the impropriety of applying some Western diagnostic categories cross-culturally, since some behaviors considered disordered by therapists in one society may be norms in others (Hoffman and Kurzenberger, “Miraculous,” 84–85).

31 . Crapanzaro, “Introduction,” 7 (emphasis his; cited also by others, e.g., Davies, Healer, 23); for those including any state indigenously interpreted as possession, cf. Bourguignon, Possession, 7; Lewis, “Spirits and Sex War,” 627.

32 . Thus Keller, Hammer, 39–40, notes that earlier anthropologists tended to explain possession in psychosocial terms, not commenting on possessing agents, but more recent research “does take seriously the agency of possessing ancestors, deities, and spirits.”

33 . See Boddy, “Spirit Possession,” 408, 410–14, 427.

34 . E.g, Wendl, “Slavery,” 120, criticizes psychoanalytic (Crapanzaro), sociological (Lewis), and feminist approaches for imposing grids instead of analyzing indigenous functions for possession experience.

35 . Ward, “Introduction,” 9. Idem, “Cross-Cultural Study,” 17, notes that psychologists’ focus on “objective, quantifiable data” must be complemented by anthropologists’ “incorporation of subjective experiential data.” For a wide range of modern scientific (esp. psychiatric) classifications, see Chandra shekar, “Possession Syndrome,” 82–83.

36 . Cf. discussion of the Gospel accounts in Twelftree, Exorcist; idem, Name.

37 . For some tragic examples, see Keener, Miracles, 804–6.

38 . Shorter, Witch Doctor, 99; Wyk, “Witchcraft,” 1202; Mensah, “Basis,” 171; further evidence in Keener, Miracles, 806–8. Witchcraft is flourishing in Africa (Harries, “Worldview,” 492; Hill, “Witchcraft,” 323–25; Bähre, “Witchcraft,” 300, 329; Wyk, “Witchcraft,” 1203–4). For the belief that negative shamanism is used to harm or kill, see reports in McNaughton, Blacksmiths, 69; Scherberger, “Shaman,” 57–59; Azenabor, “Witchcraft,” 30–31. For the sacrifice by witchcraft of relatives to achieve success, see Binsbergen, “Witchcraft,” 243.

39 . Obeyesekere, “Sorcery,” 3, noting homicidal intention but (21) doubting much effectiveness. For poisoning as well as occult means (sometimes reported by self-acknowledged sorcerers) with intent to kill, see Reynolds, Magic, 41–44; Kapolyo, Condition, 77.

40 . See, e.g., Shoko, Religion, 46; Mayrargue, “Expansion,” 286; Hoare, “Approach,” 127–28; Knapstad, “Power,” 84, 89.

41 . Hair, “Witches,” 140.

42 . See, e.g., Numbere, Vision, 136; Grindal, “Heart,” 66; Turner, “Actuality,” 5; West, Sorcery, 3–5, 9–10, 88.

43 . For suffering and death caused by curses, see, e.g., Prince, “Yoruba Psychiatry,” 91; Dawson, “Urbanization,” 328–29; Mbiti, Religions, 258; cf. Remus, Healer, 110; Welbourn, “Healing,” 364; voodoo and taboo deaths in Benson, Healing, 40–41; esp. Knapstad, “Power,” 84, 89. Widespread beliefs in curses’ efficacy appear in rural Africa (e.g., Lienhardt, “Death”; Azevedo, Prater, and Lantum, “Biomedicine”), in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Netherlands (see Waardt, “Witchcraft”), and in some parts of the West more recently (e.g., Sebald, “Witchcraft”). No one disputes witchcraft-associated killings by physical means (e.g., BBC reports on Tanzanian witchcraft killings of albinos, from Jan. 13, 2015; Feb. 17–18, 2015; March 6, 2015).

44 . See, e.g., Cannon, “Voodoo Death”; Frank, Persuasion, 39–42.

45 . Lagerwerf, Witchcraft, 14–15. Conventional Western medicine cannot treat witchcraft affliction because it isolates it from its traditional social framework (16–17).

46 . Lagerwerf, Witchcraft, 18.

47 . Some African Pentecostal churches have appeared culturally relevant by addressing witchcraft (Maxwell, “Witches,” 334); Hayes (“Responses,” 346–47, 352) views positively the approach of Zionists like Bishop Nyasha, who simply baptizes, exorcises, and reintegrates those who confess to witchcraft. Most African Catholics, Anglicans, and Presbyterian pastors condemn witchcraft, though their parishioners do not always hear them this way (Ross, “Preaching,” 12–13).

48 . Recounted in Miracles, 854–56.

49 . Addressed again, at greater length, on p. 116.

50 . Here I am selectively adapting various material from Keener, Miracles, 209–41 passim, with permission from Baker also for Keener, “Scripture and Context.”

51 . See, e.g., Robinson, “Challenge,” 321; Placher, Mark, 76.

52 . Cf. Everts, “Exorcist,” 360; Judge, First Christians, 416–23 (esp. 416). The tradition of accepting only nonphysical applications of biblical miracles narratives was already established in eighteenth-century cessationist Protestantism (see Kidd, “Healing,” 166).

53 . See, e.g., Frankenberry, Faith, ix, 34–38, 47–66, 385–86, 105, 256; Brooke, “Science,” 9; idem, Science, 118; Wykstra, “Problem,” 156; Force, “Dominion,” 89, 91; idem, “Breakdown,” 146; Osler, “Revolution,” 95; Koestler, “Kepler”; Burtt, Foundations, passim.

54 . Vermes, Jesus and Judaism, 63.

55 . Ward, “Miracles and Testimony,” 137–38. In this paragraph and the next one I follow my Miracles, 139–40, reusing its wording especially in the next paragraph.

56 . Houston, Miracles, 133–34; Smart, Philosophers, 32; Twelftree, Miracle Worker, 41. For the influence of deism on Hume, see esp. Burns, Debate, 70–95 and passim.

57 . Houston, Miracles, 148, 160; Swinburne, “Introduction,” 14.

58 . Houston, Miracles, 162; cf. likewise Sider, “Methodology,” 27; Ward, “Believing,” 742; Evans, Narrative, 156; McInerny, Miracles, 135–38; Breggen, “Seeds.” Houston notes that if one presupposes atheism methodologically so that one’s conclusions must be atheistic, no argument could satisfy the position’s demands (Houston, Miracles, 168). Backhaus, “Falsehood,” 307, argues that Hume recognized “[t]he atheist’s belief” as involving faith no less than “the theist’s.”

59 . Some would argue that one might start with a premise of theism if other grounds warranted (cf. Evans, “Naturalism,” esp. 205). Some seek to establish theism before invoking God as a causal factor (Young, “Epistemology”; cf. writers cited in Tennant, Miracle, 63–64), or note that miracles are comprehensible as such only on theistic premises (Taylor, Hume, 46–51); provided that one brackets this explanation as one explanatory hypothesis, however, the questions may be approached in tandem (cf. Weintraub, “Credibility,” 373, though lamenting the absence of a sufficiently coherent theistic theory). As McGrew, “Argument,” 639–40, notes, “not knowing that there is a God” differs from “knowing that there is not a God” (quotation from 640).

60 . See Swinburne, “Evidence,” 204–6 (regarding the hypothesis of Jesus’s resurrection); idem, “Introduction,” 14–15; idem, “Historical Evidence,” 151; Polkinghorne, Science and Providence, 58; Taylor, Hume, 51; Hambourger, “Belief,” 601; Evans, Narrative, 155; Ward, “Miracles and Testimony,” 144; Purtill, “Proofs,” 43; Otte, “Treatment,” 155–57; Langtry, “Probability,” 70; Kelly, “Miracle,” 50; cf. John Henry Newman (in Brown, Miracles, 137–38); Mozley, Lectures, 74–92; Akhtar, “Miracles” (noting the necessity of miracles in traditional Christian belief); Keene, “Possibility of Miracles,” 214 (because of God’s concern for humanity). Smart, Philosophy of Religion, 113, contends that miracles are accepted because of the authority behind them, rather than the reverse, though this dichotomy reflects modern Western assumptions. One may contrast here Hume, who denied the credibility of miracle stories recounted in religious contexts, because he deemed the latter irrational (e.g., Hume, Miracles, 36, 50).

61 . Cf. Swinburne, “Evidence,” 201–2 (regarding Jesus’s resurrection); cf. this answer against Hume historically in Ellin, “Again,” 209; cf. also the kingdom “sign” (significance) value of miracles in Polkinghorne, Science and Providence, 51. Biblical miracle stories often focus on what is naturally impossible (cf. Wire, “Story,” 36–37).

62 . See, e.g., Evans, Narrative, 159, noting that “the amount of evidence” needed to surmount appropriate epistemological caution would presumably vary “depending on the intrinsic plausibility and apparent religious significance of the miracle.” On a genuinely divine miracle’s significance (i.e., expression of the purpose of a consistent and benevolent deity), see also Polkinghorne, Science and Providence, 45, 51; Smart, Philosophers, 43, 46.

63 . Many argue that miracle claims are more probable if they fit a larger theological scheme (Tonquédec, Miracles, 52; Ward, “Miracles and Testimony,” 142; Jantzen, “Miracles,” 356; Licona and Van der Watt, “Historians and Miracles,” 4–5; for the theological context of gospel miracles in the larger gospel story, see, e.g., Helm, “Miraculous,” 86–88; as part of the larger divine reality, McKenzie, “Signs,” 17); they should have religious significance (Nicolls, “Laws”; Jensen, “Logic,” 148; Beckwith, Argument, 11–12; Licona and Van der Watt, “Historians and Miracles,” 1–2; cf. Fitzgerald, “Miracles,” 60–61; Phillips, “Miracles,” 38–39). Fern, “Critique,” 351–54, insists that miracles to be meaningful must be not only inexplicable but also showing purposefulness. On purpose in miracles, see, e.g., Burhenn, “Miracles,” 488.

64 . Miracles’ religious purpose dominated much discussion until the reaction against the Enlightenment (so McNamara, “Nature,” suggesting that balance is now returning to the discussion); in the seventeenth century, note Joseph Glanvill (Burns, Debate, 49–50), Robert Boyle (Burns, Debate, 55–56), and the majority of orthodox apologists (e.g., Burns, Debate, 114–15). Hume resists this position, thereby oversimplifying his argument (see Burns, Debate, 169–70, 178; but cf. Hume’s mention of “a particular volition of the Deity” in Miracles, 32).

65 . Ward, “Miracles and Testimony,” 144–45 (quote from 145). A logical possibility, miracles become a real possibility if theism is true (Sider, “Historian,” 312).

66 . See, e.g., critiques of Swinburne, Miracle; Houston, Miracles; Johnson, Hume; Earman, Failure.

67 . Hume, Miracles, 37 (cf. 37–40).

68 . See Ten, “Racism”; Taliaferro and Hendrickson, “Racism”; Keener, “Case.”

69 . Cf. Hume, Miracles, 55; more clearly, idem, History of Religion, 50–51; comment in Johnson, Hume, 80; Kugel, Bible, 34.

70 . See Pilch, “Sickness,” 183; idem, “Disease,” 135; cf. Barnes, “Introduction,” 6–7; Crawford, “Healing,” 31–32.

71 . See Barnes, “Introduction,” 3, and note the bibliography in Barnes and Talamantez, Teaching Religion and Healing, 353–78 just on religious traditions and healing (also Barnes, “World Religions,” 346–52).

72 . Pilch, Healing, 35 (cf. also 14).

73 . McClenon, Events, 131 and sources cited there.

74 . See, e.g., Welbourn, “Exorcism,” 595 (African allowance of both medical and spiritual treatment); Oduyoye, “Value,” 116; Jules-Rosette, “Healers,” 128; González, Tribe, 94; Droogers, “Normalization”; Shishima, “Wholistic Nature”; Pobee, “Health,” 59–60; Allen, “Whole Person Healing,” 130–31 (resisting Western acculturation that suppresses traditional African interests); Bührmann, “Religion and Healing”; Dube, “Search,” 135; Omenyo, “Healing,” 235–38; Oblau, “Healing”; Ma, “Encounter,” 130 (regarding Korea); Maggay, “Issues,” 34.

75 . “Spirit and Power” (2006 Pew Forum Survey 2006).

76 . Noll, Shape, 34 (claiming “almost all” but admitting “some hyperbole”).

77 . “Spirit and Power.”

78 . Jenkins, Next Christendom, 107, who also complains that Westerners too often contest the legitimacy of such perspectives (on 121 offering the specific example of John Spong’s ethnocentric complaints about African Anglican bishops’ “superstitious” and “Pentecostal” “extremism”).

79 . Noll, Shape, 34.

80 . Archer, “Retrospect and Prospect,” 131. On Pentecostalism’s supernatural worldview as a valuable hermeneutical preunderstanding, see also Cheung, “Study.”

81 . See Van der Watt, “Hermeneutics of Relevance,” esp. here 237–42, though importantly warning of the danger of ignoring original contexts (243).

82 . Roschke, “Healing.”

83 . Asamoah-Gyadu, “Mission,” 4, as cited in Anderson, Ends of Earth, 139. For African Pentecostal healing worldview’s correspondence with traditional African conceptions, see Asamoah-Gyadu, “Influence,” 154–57.

84 . Jenkins, Next Christendom, 122–31; cf. also Mullin, History, 279 (cf. 281); Mchami, “Possession,” 17 (on spirits); Richards, “Factors,” 95–96; Evans, “Judgment,” 201–2; Eddy and Boyd, Legend, 67–73, 82–83 (also noting, on 71–73, the shift among, and citing, “many western ethnographers” and anthropologists who have grown increasingly respectful toward other cultures’ approaches to the supernatural).

85 . Sanneh, Whose Religion, 26.

86 . Gardner, “Miracles,” 1929, quoting Finlay, Columba.

87 . Noll, Shape, 24.

88 . Wilson, “Seeing,” 202–4 (citing Loewen’s account from 1974); cf. Neufeldt, “Legacy,” 146.

89 . Wilson, “Seeing,” 204.

90 . See Gregory, “Secular Bias,” 138; cf. Hanciles, Beyond Christendom, 40 (following Minogue, “Religion”); Wolfe, “Potential,” 34.

91 . Cf. the complaint in Miller and Yamamori, Pentecostalism, 158, concerning experientially deprived academicians “who live out their existence within the shelter of the academy, where everything but faculty politics operates on assumptions of rationality and empirical verifiability.”

92 . Studies of undergraduates show that scientific training does “not reduce the frequency of anomalous reports,” in contrast to beliefs in circles of elite scientists (McClenon, Events, 35). Likewise, in cultures like Ghana there is no inverse proportionality between scientific knowledge and paranormal beliefs (22). The academy is an elite subculture, and cultural factors (at least sometimes related to academic politics) help shape its creeds.

93 . Eya, “Healing,” 51–52.

94 . Ising, Blumhardt, 222–23.

95 . Kydd, Healing, 42n40 (citing Bultmann, Kerygma and Myth, 120).

96 . Barth, Letters, 251 (cf. 270); Kelsey, Healing, 236–37; Kydd, Healing, 34; Ising, Blumhardt, 420; Barth, Dogmatics, 4.3:165ff. (noted in Kauffman, “Introduction,” 7–8). Cf. also Moltmann, “Blessing,” 149.

97 . See Ising, Blumhardt, passim. On Blumhardt, see further Macchia, Spirituality.

98 . Cf. Bultmann, “Mythology,” 4. The usual scientific method does not disprove the supernatural but brackets it from discussion as an explanation (see Ellington, “Authority,” 165); thus those who reject miracles on the grounds that there is no naturalistic explanation for them have stated nothing more than their naturalistic assumptions (put well by Metaxas, Miracles, 4).

99 . González, Acts, 84–85. Cf. also estimates of 28 percent of all Latino Christians in the United States as Pentecostal or (especially among Catholics) charismatic (Espinosa, “Contributions,” 124); their worldview is not “over-rationalized” (Alvarez, “South,” 141–42, 144).

100 . Ismael Laborde Figueras (interviews, Aug. 7, 8, 2010); cf. also Martell-Otero, “Satos,” 16–17, 32–33; idem, “Liberating News,” 384–87.

101 . Yung, Quest, 6. This perspective fits most non-Western cultures (Yung, “Integrity,” 173); it is Western antisupernatural Christianity that is now “the real aberration” (Yung, “Reformation”).

102 . Yung, “Integrity,” 173.

103 . For biblical concerns for the poor, see, e.g., Exod 22:25; 23:6, 11; Lev 19:10; 23:22; Deut 15:11; 24:14; Ps 12:5; 35:10; 37:14; 72:12–13; 82:4; 112:9; 113:7; 140:12; Prov 14:21, 31; 17:5; 21:13; 22:9, 16, 22; 28:8, 27; 29:7; 31:9, 20; Isa 10:2; 11:4; 41:17; Jer 5:28; 22:16; Ezek 16:49; 18:12, 17; 22:29; Dan 4:27; Amos 2:6; 4:1; 5:11–12; 8:4, 6; Zech 7:10; Mark 10:21; Luke 4:18; 7:22; 14:13; 19:8; Acts 4:34; Rom 15:26; 2 Cor 9:9; Gal 2:10; Jas 2:5–6. For a collection of passages, see Sider, Cry Justice; idem, Fed.

Notes to Chapter 7

1 . “Original meaning” itself encompasses a range of possible senses. By “original” meaning, do we speak of what the author intended when designing the text? At which stage of the text’s production? (This is especially an issue with texts that experienced many stages of redaction; usually literary critics today prefer to work with the final form of the text, especially when its precursors remain hypothetical or their reconstruction speculative.) Do we mean what the first real audience heard? Which hearers count as the first real audience? To keep on task for this book, I must here speak simply of this range of senses, leaving largely to others intriguing debates about greater specificity.

2 . Vanhoozer, Meaning, 249, aptly observes, “The author’s intention is the real causality that alone accounts for why a text is the way it is.” The author’s causal role remains true regardless of the extent to which we can recover it.

3 . Inferring design in the universe may be controversial in the larger culture, but inferring design in a crime scene (as opposed to an accident scene) is not. Inferring design is important in many settings, and we recognize that authors typically design their literary texts.

4 . Bartholomew, Hermeneutics, 410.

5 . For Dilthey, for example, “meaning” is especially meaningfulness (cf. Dilthey, Pattern, 67, 100) and thus changes (Rickman, “Introduction,” 48–49). “There is no one ‘meaning of life’ but only the meaning which individuals have perceived in, or attributed to their own lives . . .” (Dilthey, Pattern, 85). On the danger of confusing different usages of the term “meaning,” see also Hirsch, Validity, 255; Poirier, “Critique,” 5–6.

6 . Cf. Wittig, “Theory,” 92–94: different contexts create different meanings. Wittig here offers a helpful and positive example of this principle in the different meanings of a parable in Jesus’s own setting, that of the respective Gospels that report it, and subsequent exegetical traditions. The question remains, however, for theologians to resolve which of such contexts are authoritative for us and to what degree; Jesus’s own setting is harder to recover, but most Christians will accept as authoritative at least the canonical meanings. More extreme is -Raschke, “Textuality,” who contends that “Scripture” is not canon, but the infinite possibility of language revealed through a text. “Religion . . . is the return of the repressed. It is the Dionysian force that impinges upon the Apollonian coherence of the text” (50).

7 . Some of this section comes from Keener, Acts, 1:16–18.

8 . Aryan rereadings of biblical texts to subvert their use for the Nazi cause (see, e.g., discussion in Head, “Nazi Quest”; Poewe, Religions, passim; Bernal, Athena, 1:349; Theissen and Merz, Guide, 163) offer an extreme example that nearly all interpreters today would censure (not least because of the cause for which the texts were exploited).

9 . This transfer of “canonical” status from the text to the interpreter, when performed by a rhetorical sleight-of-hand (rather than merely as allusive and as a recognized rhetorical device), is the “transfer” persuasion technique (not unethical in all its forms, but capable of being employed deceptively; cf. Bremback and Howell, Persuasion, 235; McLaughlin, Ethics, 76, 146–47). In this limited space one cannot enter into dialogue with the ethics of radical philosophic deconstruction or its results (especially since many of its advocates would regard the ethical claims as themselves relative and subject to deconstruction). Deconstruction does offer some useful insights (such as that no texts are fully consistent, as also noted in Dio Chrys. Or. 52.7; on such inconsistencies in ancient narratives, see in more detail my discussion in Keener, John, 38–39, 901), and the contingency of all readings.

10 . Admittedly, not all critics will agree with language such as “ideal audience” (as Aune, Dictionary of Rhetoric, 229, notes, some prefer “authorial audience” as more concrete historically).

11 . Or whatever premises we can reasonably infer that the author likely shared with the ideal or authorial audience; see the discussion of relevance theory in the main text.

12 . See, e.g., Oliverio, Hermeneutics, 56, 76, 78, 99.

13 . Although it is true that “classic texts” in general “can come to ‘mean more’ than was originally intended” (Pinnock, “Work of Spirit,” 242) in the sense of their general usage, these resonances are not usually our goal in hearing an original communication. Reception history, like global readings, rightly challenges our biases and places a wider range of options on the table. Nevertheless, restorationism aside, most observers of Pentecostal reception history will recognize that most Pentecostals, like most other populist readers, have tried (often unsuccessfully) to read the Bible on its own without such layers of subsequent interpretation. Appeal to original context has admittedly often been more selective, e.g., to defend women’s involvement in ministry but not in less debated passages. But where such context shed light on the text, it has often been welcomed.

14 . Although the time required some theological affirmations and boundaries for selfdefinition, some suggest that this statement started this segment of Pentecostalism on the road to sociological institutionalization (Blumhofer, Chapter, 2:14–15, as cited in Oliverio, Hermeneutics, 87).

15 . Despite noting above the historical context of the Assemblies’ Trinitarian emphasis, for example, I do affirm the Trinity and its importance. If I wanted to illustrate the fallibility of earlier Assemblies of God doctrine, I would use an example much more appropriate for that purpose, namely the case of the (non-binding) position paper on “The Rapture of the Church.” Its dispensational eschatology, which astonishingly belongs to a larger cessationist system, was growing quite popular at the time of the Assemblies’ founding in 1914, although even some key leaders in the Assemblies have historically held views dissenting from it (for diverse views from the beginning, see Menzies and Anderson, “Eschatological Diversity”). Dispensationalism’s influence in the Assemblies flourished from the 1930s to the 1980s, “peaking in the 1950s” (Oliverio, Hermeneutics, 113), but it does not appear in the movement’s original doctrinal formulation (114); nor did it flourish in similar ways in other parts of the Pentecostal movement (116). If the reader questions whether pretribulationalism could become a casualty of genuinely inductive Bible study, one need merely investigate whether any text in context explicitly supports such a view, and whether some texts might in fact disallow it.

16 . Luther respected the opinions of earlier Christian interpreters, but insisted that even popes and councils were subject to Scripture. General assemblies and executive presbyteries must still answer to Scripture (as leaders in the Assemblies of God would agree); so must those who claim new revelations, since God’s tested revelation in Scripture functions as a measuring stick by which new revelatory claims can be evaluated. Early church fathers “insisted that the church be held accountable to Scripture,” although they did not read it in isolation from their context as the church (Hall, Reading, 13). For a helpful balance that recognizes both the values and dangers of tradition, see also Hall, Reading, 190–91, following Brown, “Proclamation,” 85.

17 . For my understanding of tradition and Scripture (though especially referring to traditions of particular churches rather than the shared Christian tradition), see Keener, “Biblical Fidelity,” 34–37.

18 . E.g., the emphasis on apostolic poverty among, e.g., Franciscans or Wycliffe’s followers. Those embracing as authoritative early Pentecostal tradition should also recall that early Pentecostals generally held to a view of history that included stages of truths being restored, of which one was the Reformation’s restoration of Scripture’s primacy.

19 . With Oliverio, Hermeneutics, 320, who, after affirming the contextual dimension of interpretation, notes that this affirmation does not imply “that I find one hermeneutic as good as another.”

20 . Carson, Showing Spirit, 173.

21 . A sermon by Cal LeMon at Evangel Temple Assembly of God, Springfield, Missouri, c. 1980–1982.

22 . The early church recognized Scripture as the “supreme authority in Christian belief and practice” (Graves, Inspiration, 38–41).

23 . On the canon, see, e.g., McDonald and Sanders, Debate; McDonald, Canon; Evans and Tov, Exploring; Kruger, Question; Porter, Evans, and McDonald, New Testament.

24 . See here the legitimate concern of Cartledge, “Text-Community-Spirit,” 141–42, regarding the danger of some charismatics de facto appropriating the community or its head as “the norming norm, rather than Scripture.”

25 . Although some theologians have objected to calling any of these extrabiblical experiences “revelations,” translations of Scripture frequently apply the term to such experiences (1 Cor 14:26, 30; 2 Cor 12:1, 7; Eph 1:17; cf. Matt 11:25, 27//Luke 10:21–22; 1 Cor 2:10; Phil 3:15).

26 . As in Ps 33:4, 6, these commands to nature in Ps 147 are linked with God’s commands to Israel in that both are God’s word (Ps 147:19; see likewise Ps 119:90–91; compare Ps 19:1–6 with Ps 19:7–11). Divine laws or decrees in nature appear also elsewhere in Egypt and the ancient Middle East (see Walton, Thought, 192–93).

27 . For more details of this argument, see Keener, John, 2:1035–43; cf. 1:234–51, 807–8, 817–18; cf. 1 John 2:27; 3:6, 24; 4:13.

28 . At first mostly among believers in Jerusalem, with its five thousand men (Acts 4:4)—at ten families per home this alone would be five hundred homes—but eventually widely scattered, with large numbers clustered in Antioch on the Orontes and elsewhere.

29 . I tell some of the story in greater detail in Keener, Gift, 187–89.

30 . God can speak to us even through word or concept association; cf. the Hebrew wordplays in Jer 1:11–12; Amos 8:1–2; Mic 1:10–15, but these serve a rhetorical or homiletical more than an exegetical function. Grey, Crowd, 104, suggests, “By using the text as a symbol independent of the historical and cultural context of the passage, Pentecostal readings can continue to invite the possibility of multiple readings of the text.” But how then can we evaluate readings? If the text can symbolize something other than what it was originally inspired to mean, does it any longer function as a canon, a measuring stick for other claims to revelation? Nevertheless, many of the examples of popular interpretation that Grey offers are genuinely plausible inferences from the principles articulated in the biblical texts. That is, in practice they apply the text rather than distorting its message.

31 . Some interpreters selectively appropriate postmodern critiques of objectivity while referring to the original communication to avoid wholesale subjectivity (see Hannah K. Harrington, Rebecca Patten, and Clark Pinnock as cited in Grey, Crowd, 46–47). Reading from within a community may challenge relativism (Archer, Hermeneutic, 132), though one must still show that one’s community’s view is better than its competitors. Rejecting the discredited modernist assumption of full objectivity does not make one a relativist or allow texts to mean just anything (Archer, Hermeneutic, 206–7, 213–14), though it is simpler to recognize this distinction than to define boundaries of meaning or levels of textual relevance.

32 . See, e.g., Edwards, Marks; Webster, Methodism and Miraculous, 29–31.

33 . Possibly this destruction was caused solely by the demons.

34 . Observing the benevolent character of Jesus’s miracles is not to dismiss the value of biblical judgment miracles such as the exodus plagues, but to affirm that it is not the primary form of miracle that Jesus models for us. (More often in the Bible God executed judgments without direct human agents, except prophetic warnings.)

35 . Since this counsel is applied to the regular evaluation of prophecies in house churches, one would not imagine that its primary purpose is to weed out those who were complete false prophets, since even large homes rarely accommodated more than fifty people. If every person in the congregation were a false prophet and one were discerned such and expelled per week (assuming that the other false prophets were qualified to recognize this), one would run out of members before the end of the year. The point here is not identifying wolves in sheep’s clothing but making sure that those who are prophesying are communicating accurately God’s message.

36 . Although some scholars find in the NT a less authoritative form of prophecy than in the OT, prophecies were not always fulfilled even in the OT, since most were implicitly conditional; see, e.g., Jer 18:6–10; Ezek 18:21–32; Jonah 3:10. Indeed, some of Jeremiah’s prophetic details may not have come to pass precisely literally (e.g., Jer 43:10–13; 46:19, 25–26; cf. Walton, Matthews, and Chavalas, Background Commentary, 675, 677–78; Voth, “Jeremiah,” 330–31), although their spirit did (the character of biblical prophecy may have allowed the fulfillment later, through Nebuchadnezzar’s successor—see Brown, “Jeremiah,” 479), and the heart of his prophetic message was thoroughly fulfilled.

37 . This paragraph is from my online biblical interpretation manual.

38 . Cf. comments in Vanhoozer, Meaning; Brown, Scripture as Communication, 69–72; Osborne, “Hermeneutics,” 391–95; fuller discussion than I can offer here in Keener, Acts, 1:18–23.

39 . I reproduce here my story from my online biblical interpretation manual.

40 . Klein, Blomberg, and Hubbard, Introduction, 7.

41 . I borrow this paragraph from Keener, “Biblical Fidelity,” 39.

42 . Cf. Thiselton, “New Hermeneutic,” 79 (citing Fuchs, “Proclamation,” 354; Ebeling, Theology, 42, 100–102): “Fuchs and Ebeling are fully aware of the role of the Holy Spirit in communicating the word of God, but they rightly see that problems of understanding and intelligibility cannot be short-circuited by a premature appeal of this kind.”

43 . Anderson, Pentecostalism, 33–34; Goff, “Theology of Parham,” 64–65; Jacobsen, Thinking in Spirit, 25, 49–50, 74, 76, 97; Robeck, Mission, 41–42, 236–37, 243, 252; McGee, Miracles, 61–76; idem, “Hermeneutics,” 102; idem, “Strategy,” 52–53; see esp. McGee, “Shortcut”; idem, “Logic”; Anderson, “Signs,” 195–99.

44 . They have often even addressed issues that would soon arise in my writing. When I was teaching in Indonesia, as the fourth volume of my Acts commentary was going to press, I was compelled in a dream to summarize the most important insight I had gleaned from my work on Acts. That insight was the frequent connection between prayer and the coming of the Spirit, a reminder that renewed my courage to appeal to Luke 11:13 in prayer—a text that therefore appears close to the end of this book.

45 . This was still true when I wrote about the experience in Keener, Miracles, 2:854–55.

46 . Unfortunately, some who read other books from start to finish treat Scripture as a magical book from which verses can be extracted at random, applying to Scripture something more relevant to I-Ching divination. Because God is sovereign and we trust him to speak through the entire canon, however, the problem is not the random selection so much as the neglect of context.

47 . For a number of ancient examples, see Keener, Acts, 1:20–21; and in the present book, see pp. 129–31. Those who argue that trying to understand what an author wanted to communicate is a purely modern agenda are simply mistaken.

48 . Despite academic detractors, common sense has value in constructing hermeneutical approaches; see helpfully Schnabel, “Fads.”

49 . A perspective refreshed by God differs from one’s natural perspective apart from him (see Ps 73:17).

50 . Stormont, Wigglesworth, 114.

Notes to Chapter 8

1 . See, e.g., discussion in Brubaker, “Postmodernism”; Clark, “Pentecostal Hermeneutics”; idem, “Hermeneutics.” Most historians are critical realists and thus reject extreme postmodern denial of facts (e.g., about the Nazi Holocaust), despite the tendentiousness of larger narratives; see Licona, Resurrection, 77–89 (esp. here 79, 84, 86–89).

2 . Oliverio, Hermeneutics, 247. Oliverio himself contends for a “hermeneutical realism” that recognizes the limitations of human knowledge but also affirms that we can nevertheless separate truths from untruths (323–24). Epistemically, neither total realism nor total unrealism is a viable option (342); we need instead “a chastened form of realism” (352).

3 . E.g., Cargal, “Postmodern Age”; Archer, “Retrospect and Prospect,” 147; cf. also Waddell, Spirit in Revelation; discussion in Herms, “Review.”

4 . E.g., Menzies, “Bandwagon”; Poirier and Lewis, “Hermeneutics.”

5 . E.g., Schweitzer, Quest, 358–62, on Matt 10:23; see the criticisms of Perrin, Kingdom, 32–33; Ladd, Theology, 200.

6 . As Karlfried Froehlich notes (Froehlich, “Hermeneutics,” 179), “reconstructions of historical developments” often tendentiously present their own position as normative. Postmodern interpretation itself reflects a particular (and undoubtedly temporary) historical context (cf., e.g., the observation in Oliverio, Hermeneutics, 223, about postmodernism’s historically conditioned denunciation of the Enlightenment).

7 . Grey, Crowd, 48–49, 53, 104, 130–31, notes concerns about the relativistic postmodern worldview, suggesting that while Pentecostals can use postmodern tools, they should operate from within their own distinctive worldview. Cf. the concern in Green, Seized, 161, that (radical) postmodernism rejects history.

8 . An ideologically driven approach may filter the interpretation of all texts through the same grid, rendering itself virtually immune to dialogue or correction. Cf. the complaint of Richard Israel, offered at a Society for Pentecostal Studies meeting: “A Pentecostal ideology is no hermeneutic at all; it is the obliteration of the horizon of the text by the interpreter” (Israel, Albrecht, and McNally, “Hermeneutics,” A8–9; as cited in Anderson, “Pentecostal Hermeneutics”). Anderson himself notes (“Pentecostal Hermeneutics”) that Pentecostals, like all other interpreters, have biases, but genuinely critical scholars recognize their biases and seek to allow texts to change our preconceptions about the texts.

9 . See the criticism of this view in, e.g., Osborne, Spiral, 165, 379–80.

10 . See Ellington, “Authority,” 155. This radical reader-response approach is also rejected by Archer, Hermeneutic, 236, as antirealist (following Vanhoozer).

11 . For theology as contextual, see, e.g., Bonk, “Missions”; Tennent, Theology; Yong with Anderson, Renewing. Cf. also Scharen, Fieldwork.

12 . See helpfully Waddell, “Hearing,” 188, following R. D. Moore. Cf. Schleiermacher’s earlier hermeneutical circle between the whole and the parts in Westphal, Community, 28–29.

13 . Johns, “Meeting God,” 24, as cited in Waddell, “Hearing,” 190.

14 . Martin, “Psalm 63,” 284.

15 . Archer, “Retrospect and Prospect,” 135–36.

16 . See Lederle, Treasures, 29–31, esp. 29; Hollenweger, Pentecostals, 32, 331–36. Examples of some theological tolerance beyond what became traditional Pentecostal boundaries include Maria Woodworth Etter, Carrie Judd Montgomery, F. F. Bosworth, Aimee Semple McPherson, and, on some issues, William Seymour.

17 . Menzies, Anointed, 130.

18 . Green, Seized, 16.

19 . Oliverio, Hermeneutics, 171n163.

20 . Edwards, “Crowns,” employing b. Men. 29b; cf. Driver, Scrolls, 550. Rabbis were not alone in presenting multiple views (Starr, “Flexibility”), and orators regularly practiced defending either side of a cause (e.g., Suetonius Rhetoricians 1; Hermog. Inv. 3.5.141–43, 145; 3.7.149; Fronto Ad M. Caes. 5.27 [42]), as did Skeptics (Lucian Double Indictment 15; Hippolytus Refutation of All Heresies 1.20), though most philosophers criticized the morality of this practice (e.g., Fronto Ad M. Caes. 4.13; Maximus of Tyre Or. 25.6). Some presenters of multiple views, however, critiqued others they thought erroneous (e.g., Porphyry Ar. Cat. 59.4–14, then affirming the “correct” interpreters in 59.15–19).

21 . Cf. N. Wolterstorff’s illustration cited in Westphal, Community, 66–67. Also note the range of expected audiences beyond one’s most informed “core” or “target” audience, discussed in Koester, Symbolism, 19–22; idem, “Spectrum”; Burridge, “People,” 143.

22 . See also Green, Practicing Theological Interpretation, 74. Ancient Christians were ready to appeal to the larger theology of the canon when the sense of specific passages was unclear; cf., e.g., Young, “Mind of Scripture.”

23 . Wittig, “Theory,” 97–98. Because “no signifier can properly re-present the thing-in-itself,” Taylor argues (Taylor, “Shades,” 32), “the activity of signification is inescapably fictive”; yet such an approach can lead to hermeneutical nihilism. More helpful is simple recognition of the finiteness of our partial perspectives (Westphal, Community, 26; cf. 1 Cor 13:9).

24 . E.g., Freudian, Marxist, or other approaches (noted in Wittig, “Theory,” 90). Hirsch, Validity, 126, permits the use of such categories for describing what is in texts, but not for investing meaning in them (e.g., a Freudian discovering Oedipal implications foreign to Shakespeare’s point).

25 . Fee, Listening, 14.

26 . Hey, “Roles.”

27 . Archer, Hermeneutic, 208.

28 . Strong critiques of Archer’s work include Spawn and Wright, “Emergence,” 14–15; Poirier, “Critique.”

29 . Archer, Hermeneutic, 232.

30 . Kenneth Archer, personal correspondence, April 11, 2015.

31 . One might even argue that this disclaimer demonstrates Archer’s valuing of authorial intention—when it is recoverable. Of course, the “ideal author” is the author projected by the text, so an apparently ideal author’s divergence from an actual author indicates a degree of failed communication, whether by the author’s failure to qualify ambiguous nomenclature or by the critics’ failure to hear from the standpoint of the text’s ideal audience or a combination thereof. The lack of standardized hermeneutical nomenclature, however, makes such failure to understand other critics virtually inevitable.

32 . Kenneth Archer, personal correspondence, April 11, 2015. This has been a point of particular criticism; thus, e.g., Oliverio, Hermeneutics, 231, complains of “his neglect of a text’s origination and attendant external context.”

33 . Kenneth Archer, personal correspondence, April 11, 2015.

34 . Archer, Hermeneutic, 222.

35 . Like modern writers, ancient ones assumed some cultural knowledge on the parts of their audiences; see, e.g., Xenophon Cyrop. 7.2.15 (assuming audience knowledge of the tradition also found in Herodotus Hist. 1.46–48); Phaedrus 5.10.10; Philost. Hrk. 1.3; Maclean and Aitken, “Introduction,” lxxxvii. Seneca’s letters often respond to, and thus presuppose, Lucilius’s questions or comments (e.g., Seneca Ep. Lucil. 68.1; 74.1; 75.1), just as Paul sometimes responded to others (e.g., 1 Cor 7:1).

36 . I say “almost” because the one exception at times is when, whether using background or not, I challenge a cherished traditional interpretation. Even then, I have not found Pentecostals more resistant than others to reconsidering their traditions. My background commentary alone has sold more than half a million copies, suggesting that at least some have an appetite for background.

37 . Others also note that popular Pentecostal readings often give little attention to historical context (e.g., Grey, Crowd, 108–9).

38 . Davies, “Read as Pentecostal,” 252. In practice, Davies probably would not go as far as these polarizing claims sound; thus, for example, he counters the danger of selecting only inspirational texts by advocating “systematic expository preaching” (258).

39 . Davies, “Read as Pentecostal,” 254. Davies cites the reality of our subjectivity (254), which is not really in dispute, and then simply dismisses the objections from detractors to his spiritualizing approach, including among fellow Pentecostals, as “singularly unconvincing” (254–44). His lack of solid argument is also criticized by Poirier, “Critique.”

40 . Davies, “Read as Pentecostal,” 256.

41 . Davies, “Read as Pentecostal,” 255. As he goes on to speak of killing “this monstrous alien” he concedes that he speaks tongue in cheek.

42 . Rather than illustrating at length I refer the reader to my treatment in Keener, Paul, 17–235; Usry and Keener, Religion, 98–109 (esp. 103–4); Keener and Usry, Faith, 20–41 (esp. 36–38). Other works are also (and sometimes even more) helpful, including Copan, Monster; Dodd, Problem; Webb, Slaves.

43 . Malina, Anthropology, 153.

44 . Keck, “Ethos,” 450–51. Cf. Stendahl, Paul, 35: “Actually there is no greater threat to serious biblical studies than a forced demand for ‘relevance.’ We must have patience and faith enough to listen to and seek out the original’s meaning.” Two examples of thorough engagement with original context in the service of contemporary mission are Schnabel, Mission; and idem, Missionary.

45 . See, e.g., Wright, Biblical Archaeology, 51. Some acknowledge some parallels but prefer Neo-Babylonian ones (Tucker, “Background”); others counter with Hurrian language (Rabin, “L- with Imperative”) or subsequent Israelites updating the language (Reviv, “Elements”; for views, cf. Katzoff, “Purchase”). Many scholars have argued that Abraham wanted only the cave (Gen 23:9), but since he needed the land quickly, Ephron could compel him to buy the entire field (23:11), which would transfer any responsibilities for dues on the property from Ephron to Abraham (Gordon, Near East, 124; idem, Common Background, 94; Kitchen, Orient, 155). The narrative function, of course, is to reinforce Israel’s right to possess Canaan.

46 . See Marshall, Enmity, 13–21; most mildly, such refusals demonstrated contempt (Pliny Ep. 8.6.9).

47 . See, e.g., Chaván de Matviuk, “Growth”; Pedraja, “Testimonios. ”

48 . Keener, Background Commentary.

49 . Some of the fruits appear in Keener, “Tabernacle”; idem, “Worship.”

50 . In “Authorial Intention in Premodern Exegesis” (see p. 136).

51 . Ramm, Interpretation, 114–15; defending this goal, see, e.g., Stein, “Benefits” (cited favorably in Hernando, Dictionary, 14n4); Stein, Guide, 11–23.

52 . Noted in Grey, Crowd, 42.

53 . Grey, Crowd, 56.

54 . Archer, Hermeneutic, 58; though elsewhere he views this as a response to historical criticism (263). Nor is taking into account authorial context foreign to ancient interpreters, as is sometimes wrongly claimed; see discussion in the present book (pp. 129–31).

55 . George, “Introduction,” xxvii. On the Enlightenment origins of “pure” historical criticism, as opposed to the earlier Renaissance and Reformation interest in historical context (on which see, e.g., Bartholomew, Hermeneutics, 195–96), see Bartholomew, Hermeneutics, 208–24.

56 . For many relevant texts, see, e.g., Russell and Winterbottom, Criticism; many of these include extrinsic genre criticism and other elements.

57 . Much of what appears here I have borrowed from Keener, Acts, 1:20–21.

58 . See, e.g., Quintilian Inst. 10.1.22; cf. Aune, Dictionary of Rhetoric, 397. For literary context, see, e.g., Dionysius of Halicarnassus Dem. 46; Apuleius Apol. 82–83; Hermogenes Method in Forceful Speaking 13.428; for sensitivity to genres, e.g., Quintilian Inst. 10.1.36; Maximus of Tyre Or. 38.4; Menander Rhetor 1.1.333.31–334.5; Philostratus Vit. soph. 2.33.628.

59 . Aul. Gel. 20.1.6, citing a source that he treats as reliable.

60 . E.g., Corn. Nep. Pref. 5–7; Plut. Greek Questions; Roman Questions; Themistocles 27.2–3.

61 . They knew how to reapply ancient quotations in (conspicuously) new ways (e.g., Brutus’s quote of Eurip. Med. 332 in Appian Bell. civ. 4.17.130; Virgil in Sen. Suas. 3.5–7; 4.4–5), so writers sometimes used them for rhetorical display rather than for the authority of their original sense. Nevertheless, quotations used out of context to justify wrong behaviors could call for censure (as in Alciph. Paras. 20 [Thambophagus to Cypellistes], 3.56, ¶2).

62 . Stanley, Language of Scripture, 345.

63 . Dewey, “Gospel of Mark,” 145.

64 . For the actor’s intention, see Hermog. Issues 49.9–14; 61.16–18; 67.6–8; 72.14–73.3; Quint. Decl. 274.8 (for a divine actor); 281.1–3; 289.2; 311.8; 373.12; Libanius Topics 2.1; also Robinson, Law, 16; cf. Cicero Fin. 3.9.32; Seneca Controv. 10.1.9; y. Ber. 2:1.

65 . For legislative intention, see Aeschines Ctes. 33; Lysias Or. 31.27, §189; Rhet. Alex. 1, 1422b.20–25; Hermog. Issues 40.6–19; 60.13–14; 66.12–13; 80.4–13; 82.4–5, 13–18; 83.20; 86.4–5; 91.9–13; Quint. Decl. 248.9; 249.3–5, 8; 251.2–3; 252.8; 274.9; 277.2; 297.8; 308; 317.9; 329; 331.3; 350.2, 6; esp. 317.2. Thus it was frequent to pit laws against each other; e.g., Quint. Decl. passim (e.g., 251 intro; 274 intro; 277.5; 299 intro; 303 intro; 304 intro; 304.1; 315 intro; 366 intro; esp. 304.1; 315.8). When useful for the case, however, one will play down the importance of the actor’s (e.g., Quint. Decl. 302.3; 314.6) or legislator’s (313.5–6) intention; laws should state qualifications (Arist. Rhet. 1.1.7, 1354a; Philost. Vit. soph. 2.33.628), or one must define them (Hermogenes Issues 65.1–8), citing implicit exceptions (Seneca Controv. 9.4, passim). One’s goal in the case determines whether one appeals to intention or wording (Hermog. Issues 40.6–19).

66 . See Apul. Apol. 82–83.

67 . See Pogoloff, “Isocrates,” 338–62. Kohelet rightly observed that nothing new is under the sun (Eccl 1:9).

68 . E.g., cf. Aristotle’s μῦθος and modern plot (Belfiore, “Plots”); cf. also his conception of imitation (Rollinson, “Mythos and Mimesis ”).

69 . Sometimes this assumption is made explicit, e.g., Dion. Hal. Isaeus 14 assumes that his readers/students have read Isaeus’s speeches on which he comments. Maxwell, “Audience,” addresses some assumed audience knowledge, and even suggests that authors may omit some information to augment audience participation.

70 . E.g., Xen. Cyr. 7.2.15 (alluding to the well-known Delphic oracle; cf. Hdt 1.46–48); Phaedrus 5.10.10. Cf. Anonymous, Commentary, Prologus, Frede 15.1–16.46 (Burns, Romans, 11), on Paul.

71 . Elsewhere in ancient sources, e.g., Phaedrus 3.1.7; Dio Chrys. Or. 34.3, 10. Sometimes writers even deliberately obscured their meaning to outsiders (e.g., Nicholson, “Confidentiality”; less persuasively, Callaway, “Reflections”).

72 . Proclus Poet. Essay 6, Bk. 2, K200.9–14.

73 . E.g., Sen. Ep. Lucil. 108.24–25, who interprets the use of fugit in Virg. Georg. 3.284 in light of Virgil’s use elsewhere; so also Dion. Hal. Demosth. 46 (on Demosthenes’s speeches); Philost. Hrk. 11.5 on Hom. Od. 18.359, using Hom. Il. 21.197. Cf. also Aune, Dictionary of Rhetoric, 210–11, on ancient Homeric critics’ recognition of hapax legomena.

74 . Milazzo, “Sermone.”

75 . Cf. other examples in Libanius Maxim 3.9 (on Demosthenes); Proclus Poet. Essay 6, Bk. 1, K145.27–K146.1; K150.12–13. Although Heraclitus often simply allegorizes, sometimes (as in Heracl. Hom. Prob. 79.8) he appeals to circumstances in the narrative world to explain a character’s speech.

76 . E.g., Galen Grief 24b–26. Writers also acknowledged the imprecision of trying to find equivalent words for translation in different languages (Sen. Ep. Lucil. 111.1–12).

77 . See, e.g., Verbaal, “Cicero,” on Cicero’s interest in Dionysius of Syracuse’s tyranny (Tusc. Bk. 5) because of his own concerns regarding Caesar.

78 . Grant and Tracy, History, 94; Ramm, Interpretation, 55; Wyckoff, Pneuma, 22–24.

79 . Ramm, Interpretation, 58–59.

80 . Grant and Tracy, History, 92–93; Wengert, “Luther,” 93. For Ernesti, a classical scholar in 1761, see Ramm, Interpretation, 59.

81 . Wyckoff, Pneuma, 35, following Krentz, Method, 7–18; cf., e.g., Luther’s and Calvin’s evaluation of Paul’s argument in Gal 4:21–31 in Bray, Galatians, Ephesians, 159–60. Indeed, pre-Christian historians had already raised many critical issues developed in modern historiography (see Keener, Acts, 1:122–31).

82 . Kennedy, “Criticism,” 126.

83 . Klauck, Context, 1.

84 . See Lightfoot, Commentary (a reprint edition).

85 . Archer, Hermeneutic, 125; cf. Oliverio, Hermeneutics, 91.

86 . Archer, Hermeneutic, 101–2n44. On a popular level “inductive common sense reasoning” was deployed in proof-texting (Archer, Hermeneutic, 62–63; cf. Oliverio, Hermeneutics, 118–19, 130).

87 . He was grandson of Elmer Kirk Fisher, pastor of Azusa Street Mission’s sister church, the Upper Room Mission (Olena, Horton, 25–40).

Notes to Chapter 9

1 . Even authors can gain subsequent insight into their work, especially if they are elaborating material that originally held a larger meaning. Only after writing Impossible Love, which formally addresses a romance between my wife and myself, did it strike me how the obvious theme of God’s love for us not only runs deeper but offers a fuller (humanly) “impossible love.”

2 . Brown, Scripture as Communication, 69–72, emphasizes that the contemporary approach is more nuanced than earlier authorial approaches.

3 . Burridge argues that “the purpose of the author is essential to any concept of genre as a set of expectations or contract between the author and the reader or audience” (Burridge, Gospels, 125; cf. also e.g., Shuler, Genre, 32; Allison, Moses, 3; Ashton, Understanding, 113). The classic defense of authorial intention is Hirsch, Validity, though the discussion has shifted since that time; for a brief discussion of this hermeneutic, see Osborne, “Hermeneutics,” esp. 390–91; Meyer, Realism, 35–41.

4 . Eliot, “Tradition,” 454–55, 459–60.

5 . Wimsatt and Beardsley, Icon, 10, 13–14.

6 . Wimsatt and Beardsley, Icon, 18.

7 . Hays, Echoes, 201n90 (citing Wimsatt and Beardsley, “Intentional Fallacy,” 3, 5). Talbert, Mediterranean Milieu, 17, cites Hays approvingly. Vanhoozer, Meaning, 96n167, also distinguishes Wimsatt’s original and reasonable objection in other respects from some subsequent applications of the essay; see also Hirsch, Validity, 12. From Hirsch’s perspective emphasizing authorial intention, the only texts “for which aesthetic criteria would be both intrinsic and sufficient are texts which have only aesthetic aims” (Validity, 155).

8 . See comments on relevance theory on pp. 69, 145, 194, 247 in the present book, and further theoretical comment in Brown, Scripture as Communication, 35–38.

9 . The decoding and reencoding analogy may separate the steps too precisely where there remains significant cultural overlap.

10 . One encounters these regularly in the news, although many grievances are political contrivances from the left or the right. For some examples from the left, see Powers, Silencing, 78, 81.

11 . See Bauckham, Gospels for Christians, esp. idem, “Gospels.” For target audiences, however, see Burridge, “People,” 143.

12 . Texts may also be used as propaganda, and sometimes Seneca may have used Epicurus to this effect in his letters to Lucilius. Nevertheless, Seneca’s application normally had a foundation in the historical sense.

13 . Interpreters often cite communication theory, on which see further Searle, Expression; idem, Speech Acts; Littlejohn and Foss, Encyclopedia; idem, Theory; cf. Searle and Vanderveken, Foundations.

14 . Stein, Guide, 11.

15 . Cf. also Chrysostom Hom. Cor. 29.2; esp. Severian of Gabala Pauline Commentary from the Greek Church (Bray, Corinthians, 118): unclean spirits compel pagans’ prophecies and the speakers do not understand, “whereas the [true] prophet’s soul is enlightened and reveals what the prophet has learned and understood.” Contrast the more common ancient view that ecstatic prophecy displaced the mind, e.g., in Sib. Or. 12.295–96; Aune, Prophecy, 47; Piñero, “Mediterranean View.”

16 . E.g., Ezek 2:1, 3, 6, 8; 3:1, 3–4, 10, 17, 25; etc.

17 . Even with prophets; cf. perhaps διὰ τῶν προφητῶν (Matt 2:23; Luke 1:70; 18:31; Acts 3:18, 21; Rom 1:2).

18 . Views noted in Grey, Crowd, 42.

19 . Grey, Crowd, 56.

20 . Henry, God Who Speaks, 281, as cited in Wyckoff, Pneuma, 67. That intention’s significance for contemporary audiences remains consistent with, though stretched beyond, the original intention (Henry, God Who Speaks, 281, as cited in Wyckoff, Pneuma, 136–37).

21 . Poirier, “Critique,” 2; cf. Poirier and Lewis, “Hermeneutics,” 12. Indeed, before the reign of modern historical criticism, Baconian induction dominated (Archer, Hermeneutic, 50–51, 62; Oliverio, Hermeneutics, 108), an approach that should support the valuing of context (see, e.g., the valuable nineteenth-century scholarship of J. B. Lightfoot).

22 . Acknowledged also by Hirsch, Validity, 19. See, e.g., Pindar Nem. 3.1–5; Callim. Aetia 1.1.1–38; Ovid Fasti 6.5–8; Dio Chrys. Or. 36.34–35 (later poets being less inspired than earlier ones). For the biblical prophets, see, e.g., 2 Pet 1:21; Philo Spec. Laws 1.65; 4.49; Num. Rab. 18:12; Justin Apol. 1.36. For discussion of inspiration and possession, see further Keener, Acts, 1:896–909.

23 . For error despite divine inspiration, cf. Philost. Hrk. 25.4, 8 with Hrk. 24.1–2; 25.10–17; Lucian True Story 2.32; perhaps Hierocles How Should One Behave toward the Gods? (Stobaeus Anth. 1.3.53; criticizing Homer Il. 9.497); Libanius Refutation 1.1; 2.1.

24 . Also see Poirier, “Authorial Intention”; for Aristotle, Poirier also cites De Cuypere and Willems, “Meaning.”

25 . Poirier, “Critique,” 4, cites Augustine Doctr. Chr. 2.5.6; 2.13.19; 3.27.38. Whether Augustine’s approaches always yielded the authors’ thoughts may surely be doubted, but the goal remains interesting nonetheless.

26 . Iren. Her. 1.8.1. For Valentinian reinterpretation of NT language apart from its historical context, see Grant, Gnosticism, 140.

27 . For criticisms, see, e.g., Lentricchia, After New Criticism, 256–80; Hoy, Critical Circle, 11–40; I owe these references to my Duke colleague Dwight N. Peterson. Archer, Hermeneutic, 201, cites against Seung, Semiotics, 10–45, and seems to agree with the dismissal of Hirsch’s approach as naïve in Lundin, Disciplining Hermeneutics, 21. Westphal, Community, 46–56, critiques Hirsch’s approach as problematic.

28 . For Hirsch’s influence on Fee’s hermeneutic, see Oliverio, Hermeneutics, 171.

29 . Hirsch, Validity, 1–5. Westphal, Community, 57–68, speaks less alarmingly of “revoking authorial privilege.” Bartholomew, Hermeneutics, 313, cites examples of scholars who “pronounced the author dead” (Barthes, “Death”; Foucault, “Author”) and others who have “declared the return of the author!” (Burke, Death ).

30 . Hirsch, Validity, 3. The objective is not the author’s thoughts but what he sought to communicate (Hirsch, Validity, 18). He treats emphasis on purely intrinsic literary criticism as a reaction against nineteenth-century positivist fixation on causal patterns (145). He affirms Gadamer’s rejection of inaccessible authorial thought processes although criticizes him for going too far (248).

31 . Hirsch, Validity, 4–5.

32 . Hirsch, Validity, 6–9.

33 . Hirsch, Validity, 12; for the author’s meaning as “only partially accessible” see 17; for dependence on judgments of probability, see 173–79, esp. 173–74; for contrasting intention and accomplishment, 153. We cannot reconstruct fully the cultural givens (40–44), but recognizing this limitation need not produce total skepticism (40); symbols of all cultures, including our own, are learned (43), and we can misinterpret any text (44).

34 . Hirsch, Validity, 18.

35 . Westphal, Community, 57 (citing R. Barthes, M. Foucault, and J. Derrida), 63 and 67 (on P. Ricoeur). Even Derrida, against common misunderstanding, did not argue that texts are completely independent of authors; see Smith, “Inc/arnation,” 112–19, as cited in Oliverio, Hermeneutics, 218–19.

36 . Westphal, Community, 63, quoting Ricoeur, Hermeneutics, 91, 201. For Ricoeur, the focus is less on the author behind the text than on the text itself and the possibilities it opens (Westphal, Community, 64). Of course, as the inadequacies of formalism demonstrated, we cannot read texts as autonomous entities apart from contexts, which is why the conflict over which contexts take priority has been so heated.

37 . See, e.g., Archer, Hermeneutic, 178–79, 182, 190, 200–201.

38 . John Wyckoff, personal correspondence, April 26 and May 10, 2015.

39 . See, e.g., Spawn and Wright, “Emergence,” 4, noting his involvement “For more than thirty years.”

40 . Fee, Listening, 9. Fee also emphasizes how biblical texts are designed (Listening, 11).

41 . Fee, Listening, 9.

42 . Archer, Hermeneutic, 178–79, 203 (critiquing also, e.g., Gordon Anderson). To depict Archer’s own view as completely dismissing authorial input, however, is probably unfair; certainly he wants readers to understand his own authorial intention, sometimes seeking to make this clear textually (note, e.g., his third-person reference to himself in Archer, Hermeneutic, 249: “this author is reiterating”).

43 . Fee, Listening, 9.

44 . Fee, Listening, 10, recognizing, however, that intentionality differs by genre.

45 . Cf. Keener, Background Commentary, 596. Regarding the authenticity of 2 Thessalonians, see 361n12 below. See sources in Keener, Acts, 2533; also Porter, Paul, 228–36.

46 . This may be one reason for Fee’s caution in deriving theology from narrative, discussed elsewhere in this book (pp. 166–67, 252). Intention affects genre itself (see Walton, Thought, 228, following Halpern, Historians, 8), though implied genre normally takes for granted more widely shared cultural assumptions.

47 . Hernando, Dictionary, 26n24.

48 . Archer, Hermeneutic, 218. On the value of Eco’s “model reader,” see also Green, Practicing Theological Interpretation, 18–19 and idem, Seized, 57, following esp. Eco, Reader.

49 . Allison, Moses, 3.

50 . Hirsch, Validity, 24–26. He avers, “Validity requires a norm—a meaning that is stable and determinate no matter how broad its range of implication and application” (126). Hirsch complains that, safeguarding against nihilism, Gadamer uses the text’s stable meaning as a norm, yet Gadamer then contends that meanings change (251).

51 . Hirsch, Aims, 79, 90 (brought to my attention by Dwight Peterson).

52 . Fee, Gospel, 40. Dickens was not evangelical, but his social commitments were strongly shaped by Christian conviction (see Colledge, God and Dickens, 111–36; on A Christmas Carol, see 52–53, 121).

53 . This language, too, has invited criticism, although most recognize narrative strategies (see Aune, Dictionary of Rhetoric, 228). For the implied author as distinct from the actual historical author, see, e.g., Bauer, “Function,” 131.

54 . See, e.g., Job 12:2; 1 Cor 4:8; 2 Cor 11:8; Sib. Or. 3.57–59; Jos. Apion 1.295; Rhet. Alex. 21, 1434a.17–32; 35, 1441b.24–28; Cicero Fam. 5.2.8; Orator 40.137; Phil. 13.2.4; Sest. 37.80; Sulla 24.67; Verr. 2.1.6.17; 2.2.31.76; 2.5.10.25; Sil. It. 11.254–55; Dio Chrys. Or. 31.9–10; 47.25; Lucian Zeus Rants; Quint. Decl. 306.28; 338.26; Apul. Apol. 75, 100; see many ancient examples in Duke, Irony, 8–12; O’Day, Revelation, 12–18; cf. Walde, “Irony”; Braund, “Satire.” Some attributed irony’s invention to Socrates (Cicero Brutus 292; Fronto Ad M. Caes. 3.15.2).

55 . Patte, Structural Exegesis, 21, 25.

56 . Cf. Osborne, Spiral, 154–55, 161–62, 394; Bartholomew, Hermeneutics, 418–20; cf. also seeking to remain within the boundaries of communicative intention, in Brown, Scripture as Communication, 85.

57 . Benson, “Ignorant,” 189–91.

58 . Archer, Hermeneutic, 230 (or, more precisely, an “implied community,” 245).

59 . See Osborne, Spiral, 162–63. Critics do often distinguish the implied reader from real readers and narratees (Fowler, “Reader,” esp. 10–11).

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