Previously I said that a proper hermeneutical scheme should at least be literary/covenat-historical. "Literary" because grammatical was far too small and limited a category to take into account aspects like genre and theme. "Covenant-historical" because history is by its relationship to the Trinity, covenantal. This may seem to be redundant then, but given that many different interpretations exist because of a lack of understanding of the covenant, this redundancy would seem to be necessary so as to make our scheme as precise as possible.

It must be stated that these two intertpretive aspects arise from a simple glance at the biblical text. It is obviously a literary work that takes place only in the past. Therefore, a literary/covenant-historical hermenutic should be the least that we bring to the table.

There is one final aspect of interpretation that needs to be taken into account, and that ir typology. Typology is a curious thing because it seems to be both literary and historical. Take, for instance, the typology that exists between Adam and Christ:

1. Adam created as God's son
   
2. Adam is put to sleep in the garden
   
3. Adam's side split/Eve
   
4. Adam doesn't crush head of serpent
   
5. Adam kicked out of garden
   
6. Angels block way to garden

1. Jesus, the Son, incarnated as a man
2. Jesus sleeps/dies on the cross
3. Jesus' side split/the Bride
4. Jesus does crush head of serpent
5. Jesus buried in a tomb in a garden
6. Angels unblock way to garden/tomb

There are other typological correlations, but hopefully that is sufficient. Now, the thing to realize here is that this typology is both a literary and an historical reality. There seems to be an interplay here between the literary and the historical that neither can fully account for on there own. Typology seems to be to me a third and final aspect of hermeneutics that needs to be taken into consideration in order to properly understand and exegete the text. So, this would make our final scheme literary/covenant-historical/typological.

I do not think that there are three aspects of this method by coincidence. This would seem to suggest a Trinitarian view of hermeneutics, which I will try to comment about in my next post.