1. On your whiteboard: What is interpretation? Define hermeneutics.
What is the difference between hermeneutics and exegesis?
What is inspiration?
What has inspiration got to do with interpretation?
Name the three kinds of biblical interpretation.

6. Key Questions Who was Karl Barth? What was his view of scripture?
Should we accept his view?

7. Karl Barth
Early 1900s
Campaigned against Nazism amongst German Christians
Opposed Liberal/modernist theology

8. Liberalist/modernist Theology
Sceptical
Rationalist
Focus on moral and allegorical interpretations
What does this cartoon suggest about modernism?

9. Karl Barth – historical context
Barth opposed modernism.
Writing in 1919 (immediately after WW1), he said that the world was in a time of crisis and was being judged by God.
He campaigned against the Nazi’s interpretation of Christianity for its own ends.

10. Natural Theology
Natural Theology is the attempt to use our own rationality and empirical observations to figure out God.
Examples:
Logical arguments to prove God’s existence
Quest for the historical Jesus
Source/ form/ redaction criticism

11. Barth’s Views 1 - Idolatry
Idolatry means…
Barth said natural theology is idolatry.
All we find out is what we already think. We create a “god” in our imagination and then worship him. This is not actually God.

12. Barth’s Views 2 - Grace Grace means…
Barth said we can’t come to knowledge of God through evidence, or through our own reasoning.
The only way we can know God is through his gift of grace.

13. Barth’s Views 3 – Revelation
Revelation means…
Barth said the Bible is NOT a revelation from God.
God reveals himself in Jesus.
Anything learned about God not through Jesus is not really about God.

14. Barth’s Views 3 – Revelation
God reveals himself to us ONLY through Jesus.
People in Jesus’ time could know God by seeing and hearing Jesus.
But what about people today?
There’s nothing we can do to find God.
God finds us – through the Bible.
The Bible is not a revelation of God. It is a means through which we can receive direct revelation of God.

15. Barth’s Views 4 – The Bible
The Bible is a human document, so contains flaws.
Be careful not to idolise it.
Bible can become a revelation when it is read.
Ordinary human words until the moment God chooses to speak to the reader through them.
“No one knows who the Son is except the Father, and no one knows who the Father is except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal Him.”
Luke 10:22

16. Barth’s Views 5 – The Story of God
The Bible is the story of God. It should be read not as history or fact, but as a story.
By reading the story, the reader can come to know God, through his gift of grace.
If we read the Bible looking for morals, history, or a set of beliefs, we will only find our own thoughts reflected back to us.
HOWEVER – this doesn’t mean the Bible is unhistorical. We shouldn’t see it as true or untrue – just read it receptively.

17. On your whiteboard: Explain Barth’s views on Idolatry Grace Revelation
The Bible
The Story of God

18. Implications of Barth for modern scholarship
Read the sheet.
Briefly sum up the conservative and liberal approaches to interpretation.
Make a list of reasons for/against accepting Barth’s views.

19. “Karl Barth has made a positive contribution to our understanding of the Bible.”

20. Key Questions Who was Karl Barth? What was his view of scripture?
Should we accept his view?