Ladd was a Fuller Seminary prof hot to be well-thought-of by European liberals. He's since changed his mind on the issue.
Let's see, where's a Ryrie article I can cut and paste, so I can stop having to look at the Bible myself and do original writing here? It's got to have pictures....
Dan
Dan, you forgot your link to Biblical Christianity, or don't you post link anymore? Don't put on that "holier than thou" attitude.
From your web page:
When the plain sense of Scripture makes good sense, seek no other sense. Therefore, take every word in its primary, ordinary, usual, literal meaning, unless the facts of the immediate context, studied in the light of related passages and fundamental and axiomatic truths, clearly indicate otherwise.
This "Golden Rule" lays down a sound path to follow.11 It will deliver one from the mystical and spiritualizing excesses which have long plagued the Christian church. One who consistently applies this rule will not rob the meanings of the six days of creation, he will not scratch out the historicity of Adam and Eve, he will not equate the Christian church with the "New Israel" (thus annulling all the multitude of still-unfulfilled Biblical prophecies concerning Israel), and he will not magically transform the predicted return of Christ into either a past event (mirabile dictu!)or a personal event at each believer’s death.
It seems your hermeneutic has at least 2 areas of concern to me. 1) Context is developed after your Golden rule. If your hermeneutic logically progresses as outlined on your web page then context comes after a literal reading whereas I would consider context as the foundation of literal reading. For example, when reading the Psalms we understand that the poetic language is metaphorical in many instances so we approach the reading in that manner. Likewise, If I understood the book of Revelations more as a poetical book rather than a historical narrative I would approach the reading of the book of Revelations in a more metaphorical sense. Can you talk to this issue?
2) Your assertion that all metaphors employed in the Bible have a clear meaning seems simplistic. Even the disciples had difficulties understanding Jesus' parables. It seems to me that the reason God uses metaphors and allegories is because it is difficult for the finite human mind to understand the spiritual mind of God. The difficulty in your system is determining what is metaphor and what is literal; there seems to be no methadology.
For example, Galations 3:29 says if I belong to Christ than I am a descendant of Abraham and an heir to all the promises. If I were to read this literally than I would believe once I become a Christian I literally become a Jew. When I read this in the near context I understand it to mean that God promised Abraham that his seed would become the mediator. This was true in Jesus Christ. Then I also understand that the Mosiac covenant and the Law was brought so that we had a tutor to lead us to Christ. Then I learn that through faith anyone who believes in Christ are all part of the same. (v.28) Therefore, I am lead to believe that it God does not seperate us by genetic lineage. In the larger context, I admit, I must allegorize some of the promises made through the prophets. However, in the literal reading in the near context, I am an heir of Abraham and included in all the promises made to Israel. In my thought processes, when I allegorize the Church as Israel in the overall context, is my reading of the near context a wrong reading? How do you overcome some of these conflicts without allegorizing some of scripture? It does not appear that simple to me.