Spirit Hermeneutics: Reading Scripture in Light of Pentecost by Craig S. Keener (review)

The late Clark Pinnock once remarked, ''Both religious liberals and conservative evangelicals have conspired to leave the Spirit out of hermeneutics, and this must come to an end.'' Craig Keener, the F.M. and Ada Thompson Professor of Biblical Studies at Asbury Theological Seminary, is one of few scholars who took up Pinnock's clarion call to bring the Spirit back to hermeneutics. And he has done so quite impressively and comprehensively in Spirit Hermeneutics. The book has six major parts (with eighteen chapters!) as well as about 230 pages of scholarly documentation that consists of several appendixes, indexes, endnotes, and a thorough bibliography. It engages a wide range of scholarship, including biblical, theological, philosophical, historical, practical, and social scientific approaches, making it one of the best resources available on the topic. His main interlocutors, however, are Pentecostal and Charismatic scholars, for they are the ones who have done the most work on the role of the Spirit in contemporary biblical hermeneutics. Thus, Keener's book is also a place to go to for a thorough survey of what contemporary Pentecostals are saying about the relationship between the Holy Spirit and biblical hermeneutics.

But why ''Spirit Hermeneutics'' and not ''Pentecostal Hermeneutics''? After all, the book was originally intended to be part of the Pentecostal Manifestos series (edited by Amos Yong and James Smith) and instead was chosen to be a standalone volume by the publisher because of its length. Here lies Keener's distinct vision: Spirit hermeneutics is Christian hermeneutics, and not merely of/for Pentecostals. In other words, he would gladly use the adjective pentecostal for this hermeneutic as referring to the reading that is highly informed by the Pentecost event—hence, the subtitle of the book—that belongs to all biblical Christians. Underlying this move is his larger perception of Pentecostalism as a revival movement that simply seeks to restore and renew Christianity as a whole with its emphasis on the experience of the Spirit. Spirit hermeneutics is a gift of Pentecostalism to the rest of the church.

From this perspective, Keener explores what Spirit-guided interpretation means, investigates implications of an epistemology of Word and Spirit for biblical hermeneutics, and displays how Scripture itself models an experiential appropriation of its message. Keener argues that we ''should read Scripture as people who are living in the biblical experience—not in terms of ancient culture, but as people living by the same Spirit who guided God's people in Scripture'' (5). The Spirit, then, serves as the common context that bridges the temporal and cultural distance between the original author and the modern reader. As such, biblical experiences, including those miraculous events, are to be expected when one reads the Bible pneumatically. Pneumatic reading is experiential, but not without criteria. Keener is adamant that any responsible reader should wrestle with the historical contexts and the authorial intent of biblical passages. Readers who are already familiar with Keener's scholarly works as a biblical exegete now get a treat of seeing explicitly the hermeneutical frameworks and the theological presuppositions behind the prolific scholar. Various personal examples and experiences that Keener unabashedly shares throughout the book are a great bonus on this score—and a fitting one too, given his emphasis on the personal and experiential dimension of biblical hermeneutics.

Keener is to be commended for his willingness to walk a delicate tightrope between the subjective and the objective, the ecclesial and the public, the devotional and the scholarly, the pneumatic and the historical readings of Scripture. It is clear that Keener (still) works within the standard evangelical historical-grammatical framework—which is really a variation of the historical-critical approach—with its two-steps-hermeneutics: what was meant (i.e., historical meaning) and what is meant (i.e., contemporary significance). Thus, he locates the work of the Spirit primarily on the second step: the subjective and personal application of the objective and universal...