Exegetical Fallacies

by D.A. Carson

Carson sets out to tackle many of the fallacies which occur in interpreting the Bible. He writes: “We are obligated to take the greatest pains to understand [God’s thoughts] truly and to explain them clearly. It is all the more shocking, therefore, to find in the evangelical pulpit, where the Scriptures are officially revered, frequent and inexcusable sloppiness in handling them….Tragic is the situation when the preacher or teacher is perpetually unaware of the blatant nonsense he utters, and of the consequent damage he inflicts on the church of God. Nor will it do to be satisfied with pointing a finger at other groups whose skills are less than our own: we must begin by cleaning up our own backyard” (15-6).

Further, “It is all too easy to read the traditional interpretations we have received from others into the text of the Scripture. Then we may unwittingly transfer the authority of Scripture to our traditional interpretations and invest them with a false, even an idolatrous, degree of certainty. … If when we are in such a state we study the Bible uncritically, more than likely it will simply reinforce our errors. If the Bible is to accomplish its work of continual reformation—reformation of our lives and our doctrine—we must do all we can to listen to it afresh and to utilize the best resources at our disposal (17-8).

He categorizes the fallacies that are discussed herein into the four following broad categories (with more narrow subcategories in each chapter).

Perhaps there is nothing more dangerous to Bible study than arming someone with one year of Greek and sending them out into the world with it. While one year of study is perhaps better than none, it’s also just enough to make the unwary student dangerous with his handling of the word. To anyone who has had just one year of Greek, I would heartily recommend reading the first two chapters of this book if you read nothing else. Watching Carson dismantle professional scholars’ treatment of texts based on word-study and grammatical fallacies is an extraordinarily humbling experience and one that all amateur students of the Biblical languages should undergo. Those who have not had any experience in the languages may have a harder time working through those two chapters, but they would probably be worthwhile to any student of the Bible. The last two chapters are less technical, but just as worthwhile.

There is a great danger in a book like this: it is incredibly easy to become so enamored with the power of Carson’s arguments that one gets swept along with everything he says. After reading so many examples of where he’s right time and again, it’s easy to think uncritically of his arguments and find yourself led invariably down the path of Carson’s thinking. That he uses two examples from his own writing to illustrated various exegetical fallacies proves that he is not above such—nor would he claim to be—so even as you read the various fallacies to avoid, read with an eye to be sure he is not accidentally leading you to another one.

Overall, this short volume (142 pages, in its second edition) is definitely worth the time to read, and it should be required reading for any amateur student of Biblical languages.

The Editors do not advocate everything taught by the authors of the books we review. Like us, these authors are fallible humans and those who choose to read these books should measure them by the bible, the one true standard.