AccommodationWhen speaking of divine revelation, it means that God designed the message to be understood by the original audience in their own context. |
AnthropomorphismIt refers to the way God sometimes speaks or behaves in ways that seem almost human. |
BaconThe "father of modern science" |
DescartesThe "father of modern rationalism" |
DialogicalApproach to interpreting Scripture that involves a type of conversation between the reader and the text, coming to understand it better and better |
ExegesisTheological term for the process of analyzing a Bible passage. It means literally to "lead out" the meaning. |
GutenbergHe invented the printing press in the 15th century. |
HermeneuticsThe study of how to interpret the meaning and significance of Scripture |
HexaplaA work (now lost) of over 50 volumes written by Origen of Alexandria, in which he made a word-by-word comparison of various Hebrew and Greek versions of the Old Testament |
HumeScottish skeptic philosopher who believed that our emotions, desires and mental categories always influence our thinking |
IlluminationThe Holy Spirit’s work of conveying a proper understanding of Scripture to a human being |
InspirationTheological term used to refer to the way in which the Holy Spirit moved human beings to write God’s revelation as Scripture and superintended their work in a way that made their writings infallible |
KantPhilosopher who proposed that all knowledge involves both objective perception and subjective processing through our mental concepts that already exist in our minds |
MechanicalView of inspiration that believes that the Holy Spirit essentially dictated the Bible and that the human writers passively recorded what He said |
ObjectivismApproach to knowledge that believes it is possible to arrive at impartial knowledge |
OrganicView of inspiration that believes that the Holy Spirit used the personalities, experiences, outlooks, and intentions of human authors as he supervised and directed their writing |
RomanticView of inspiration that believes that Scripture isn’t God’s infallible truth, but only the personal reflections and opinions of the human authors |
Sensus LiteralisThe theologians of the Middle Ages in Europe used this term to speak of the original meaning of Scripture. Thomas Aquinas made a distinction between this and the "allegorical" sense. |
SpiralIn hermeneutics, this term is used to explain how we can progressively gain a better understanding of Scripture as we continue to dialog with the text. |
StructuralismSchool of thought whose proponents tried to use rational and scientific objectivity to obtain an exhaustive understanding of everything they studied. |
SubjectivismApproach to knowledge that believes that knowledge is always influenced by personal biases, making impartial objectivity impossible |