The “lexical longitudinal analysis” that we teach in our Greek course will give us the meaning of a word only in terms derived contextually from how the Apostles use it, automatically shutting out all extrinsic meanings from other “illegal” sources. We call this longitudinal lexixal analysis. We simply drop the Greek word or the Strong’s number into our search window and see how this word is actually used by the Apostles. And in most cases, a stable meaning can be derived for the word through contextual clues alone. We also add a little polish to the meaning at times from seeing our the LXX translators used this word (but only if it does not contradict the Apostolic contextual clues). Likewise we can also add a little more polish by consulting the BAG (Greek Lexicon).
But this does raise the question of whether or not our theology; that is, our theological diction must be exclusively formed with Apostolic words. And the answer is no. For a variety of reasons. The main reason is that the Apostolic literature does not entirely populate the theological universe; that is, they do not speak of everything under the theological sun. And so theological interpolation as well as extrapolation of their words (and certainly deduction and induction of their theological ideas) is not only possible and permissible, but encouraged, I think, by the spirit of God himself.
And one of the reasons for that is that even though in Christ are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, the space-time special revelation of the Apostles cannot possibly exhaust that knowledge. Thus, there are the other “books” of God’s revelation – science, sociology, psychology (etc.) – that is, observations and deductions from the data of the physical universe, the lessons of historical data, and the raw existential reality of our own experience, all of which complement and augment the special revelation of the Apostles.
Well-meaning theologians will often argue for the primacy of the “scriptures” over every other form of revelation – but the Spirit of Wisdom is no respecter of venue. Whether he reveals truth in a mathematical axiom, the microscopic structure of a snowflake or the Apostolic conversation, there is absolutely no conflict or precedent when truth leaves the lips of God. It is in the reception of truth that the problem comes in. Much of this problem is innocent ignorance and immaturity. Some of it is false perception. Some of it is stubbornness. Some of it is simply sinful opposition.
This is where science comes in – or rather the “scientific method.” In figuring out what the Apostles are actually saying in their limited venue, we must use lexical longitudinal analysis. That’s just science. And we must not allow any other extrinsic “noise” from any other source to subvert that data. For example, Kepler hated the fact that his math was proving that the planets were traveling in elliptical orbits, not in the perfect circular orbits that the philosophers and theologians expected and stubbornly maintained. But he did not reject the data. He humbly submitted to what his calculations were showing.
To go beyond what the data supports – into the airless regions of pure conjecture – is either mysticism or bad science, in any venue. Its not just the theological ruminations of the current religious establishment that do this; sciences in other areas do it too. Take astronomy, for example. Discovering the “red-shift” was very exciting for the astronomy community. It was absolutely hard datum. The spectrum of the light from distant stars was definitely shifted towards the red end of the spectrum. Observation after observation confirmed that there were no exceptions to this phenomenon. This is the classical “scientific method” at work. Then the process of explanation began. Why was the light shifted to the red end? It was agreed that the universe was expanding and that this was simply a doppler shift. But this led to big bangs, singularities, dark matter, dark energy, Higgs bosons, the cosmic backround radiation etc. etc. etc. And the theories have gotten all tangled up with special relativity and quantum mechanics, which are also extremely hypothetical theories. Which means that they cannot be easily confirmed by experimentation. But thank goodness for Karl Popper, because they can sometimes be disproven. That’s what happened when they sent up the James Webb telescope. They found stuff that clearly contradicted the theories – like fully formed galaxies near the (supposed) beginning of time, which is completely inconsistent with a big bang.
Don’t get me wrong. Theological conjecture is not wrong. It just doesn’t have the authority of the data itself – unless it can be rigorously supported with experimentation (or by longitudinal lexical analysis, in our specific case). The closer our explanations and definition are to the data, the safer and more useful our deductions will be. The problem comes in when the theological conjectures (or scientific conjectures) of men supplant the actual data and closely reasoned (ordinary) deductions from that data. Then we have a problem like Corban in which men make the revelation of God of none effect with the theories of men. (loose application of Mark 7:13).
To do longitudinal lexical analysis will fix errors caused by inconsistencies, miscellaneous mistakes and bias. But this only applies in translating what the Apostles are saying. To test our own theological diction, we must find a way to test it against the “ideational furniture” of the Apostles. That’s much harder to do. And one of the things that makes it hard is that sometimes we use theological words that are not in the Apostolic lexicon to express ideas that are. And that’s ok. But to be safe and to inspire confidence in our theology, we must prove this to ourselves – and to our colleagues.
In understanding the liberal phenomenon of the 20th century, we had to realize that the bad guys were using Apostolic words and phrases, but they were intentionally backfilling them with definitions and ideas that were heretical. We can call this the “Corban principle.” Concerning the commandment to honor father and mother, the religious establishment of Jesus’ time did not dispute the commandment, they simply provided an illegal theological exception by which the commandment could be ignored. The end result: the extrinsic theology of the religious establishment destroyed the Word of God upon which their theology was supposedly based.
The irony here is that the conservative (Standard Model) of our own religious establishment often does the same thing. The difference is that the Liberals knew that there was no way their formulations would be acceptable to the Apostles had they seen them. Thus they were being very dishonest. Bishop Spong was reported to have said that he could sing the Nicene Creed but he couldn’t believe it. Our criticism of his position was that in such a case, simple ethics demands that he leave the ministry that is funded by people who believe that he did.
But if I approach a theologian of the (conservative) Standard Model and say to him that: ‘you are massively employing words and ideas that are simply not in the linguistic or ideational range of the Apostolic Conversation.’ He will most likely say to me: ‘So what? My words and phrases are massively consistent with the Reformation creeds of the Church and with Augustinian theology. By what authority do you critique those creeds and that theology?’[1] This is actually the same question that the cultists ask. And the only answer that the (conservative) Standard Model can give to the cultist is this: ‘we outnumber you.’ And this is how the mainline denominations tried to fight off liberalism in the first half of the 20th century. They simply maintained that the Liberals were in the minority. You would have thought that the Standard Model would have appealed to the canons of Biblical criticism to clearly demonstrate that the Liberal theological program was linguistically and ideationally inconsistent with the Apostolic conversation (hopelessly). But they didn’t. They just ridiculed the liberals and called them bad men and scoffed at their minority standing. Until the day that liberals were no longer in the minority.
Why didn’t the Standard Model use the science of Biblical criticism to conclusively prove that the Liberals were completely out of sync with the Apostolic linguistic and ideational world? Because the Standard Model had been in headlong retreat from science in general, at least since Hegel, and could no longer mount a scientific defense of their position in any venue. We saw that at the Scopes trial. And every heresy trial since then has been an unmitigated, embarrassing disaster. But here’s the thing. Let’s be honest here. Another part of the reason that the Standard Model has been in headlong retreat from the science of Biblical criticism is because the slightest dabbling with it will suddenly reveal the massive plasticity of their own theology, which is in turn based on the plasticity of their source material, which for over 1000 years – from Augustine to Calvin – has been redacted into the Latin and then into the English, in which many of the words available to the translators have already been backfilled with foreign meanings that are consistent with an evolved Standard Model, but at significant odds with the Apostolic conversation.
So the other part of the hemisphere that we must address is that after we have perfected our science of linguistic analysis, and after we have developed a responsible freedom to coin new theological words, we must then be very careful to make sure that our theological diction and ideation is rigorously consistent with the Apostolic conversation. We are not being purists here. We are just being practical. And scientific. Because to start fooling around with Apostolic words like χάρις and ἀγάπη and come up with “grace” and “charity” is not coining new words; it is forging new meanings and then backfilling them into the old word, supplanting the Apostolic linguistic range of the words altogether. Owen Barfield, in Poetic Diction, (a very good friend of C. S. Lewis), called this “logomorphism,” which is the projection of modern meanings onto old words.
The correct procedure is to figure out what a word meant to the Apostles and to ask ourselves: are we making any illegal modifications to the word with our new theology? This procedure applies to any science. Our paradigms must be rigorously consistent with the data that we observe. If this means that we have to fine tune Euclidean geometry, and Newtonian physics and Ptolemy’s Astronomy based on new and more accurate observations, then so be it. If we have to re-tune the (conservative) Standard Model to get it back in sync with the Apostolic conversation, then so be it.
Paul K. Hubbard, President, St. Timothy’s Theological College and Seminary.
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[1] One might ask by what authority Augustine contradicted the great scholar, Jerome. “In a sermon given in 397, even as a newly minted priest, Augustine did just that. He crossed swords with the establishment. He defied the seasoned authority of Jerome, and the greatest minds of Eastern Christendom, for that matter. At issue was whether or not the argument between Peter and Paul, recorded in Galatians, was real or was a contrived piece of theater, in which Peter allowed Paul to pretend to condemn him (in public), but Paul was really taking aim at other Judaizers who refused to change with the times. Augustine maintained that the argument must be real, and that through very unstable exegesis, Jerome was taking Scripture beyond where it was designed to go. Augustine believed that the authority of the Scriptures was above any other human exegete, even the great Jerome (who believed that this argument had been staged). And in this case, I side with Augustine.” Paul K. Hubbard, Confessions of an Anglican Priest (Poquoson, VA: St. Timothy’s Publishing, 2026), 21.
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