What Does It Mean?: Puritans and (Biblical) Interpretation
Listen to the lecture “What Does It Mean?: Puritans and (Biblical) Interpretation” in the media player below or directly on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
Listen on Spotify or Apple Media.
Transcript of lecture:
As a reminder, the learning goals of the lecture are:
…for learners to be able to explain why the Holy Spirit played a prominent role in interpretation; explain the role of the minister in interpretation; and identify a version of the Bible that a minister might have used.
Discussion questions and forum:
- Read the following excerpt from the transcript of Anne Hutchinson’s trial and do a little more research on her life and the trial. What do you think her view on interpretation was? How is this similar and different from the general Puritan view that I presented in the lecture?
- “Mrs. H. If you please to give me leave I shall give you the ground of what I know to be true. Being much troubled to see the falseness of the constitution of the church of England, I had like to have turned Separatist; whereupon I kept a day of solemn humiliation and pondering of the thing; this scripture was brought unto me—he that denies Jesus Christ to be come in the flesh is antichrist—This I considered of and in considering found that the papists did not deny him to be come in the flesh, nor we did not deny him—who then was antichrist? Was the Turk antichrist only? The Lord know that I could not open scripture; he must by his prophetical office open it unto me. So after that being unsatisfied in the thing, the Lord was pleased to bring this scripture out o the Hebrews. He that denies the testament denies the testator, and in this did open unto me and give me to see that those which did not teach the new covenant had the spirit of antichrist, and upon this he did discover the ministry unto me and ever since. I bless the Lord, he hath let me see which was the clear ministry and which the wrong. Since that time I confess I have been more choice and he hath let me to distinguish between the voice of my beloved and the voice of Moses, the voice of John Baptist and the voice of antichrist, for all those voices are spoken of in scripture. Now if you do condemn me for speaking what in my conscience I know to be truth I must commit myself unto the Lord.
- Mr. Nowell How do you know that that was the spirit?
- Mrs. H. How did Abraham know that it was God that bid him offer his son, being a breach of the sixth commandment?
- Dep Gov. By an immediate voice.
- Mrs. H. So to me by an immediate revelation.
- Dep Gov. How! an immediate revelation.
- Mrs. H. By the voice of his own spirit to my soul. I will give you another scripture, Jeremiah 46:27-28—out of which the Lord showed me what he would do for me and the rest of his servants—But after he was pleased to reveal himself to me I did presently like Abraham run to Hagar…”
- “The Examination of Mrs. Anne Hutchinson at the Court at Newtown.”1767, The Antinomian controversy, 1636-1638, edited by David D. Hall, Wesleyan University Press, 1968. Pgs 336-7.
- Imagine if you used the interpretive method described here in a class in school. This could be an English class, a History class, a science class, or another class. It could be applied to any text in the class—a poem, a treatise, a textbook, and so forth. Who might be in the position of the “minister” and would there be an analogue for the Holy Spirit? What would you find effective and ineffective about this method of interpretation? How do you think the teacher of your class would respond?
Respond to these discussion questions (or other topics of your choosing, relating to the lectures) here: