Abstract
Abstract: This article describes the biblical hermeneutics that inform the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America by comparing the ELCA's tradition of biblical interpretation with that of the Lutheran Church‐Missouri Synod. It sets both against the great social and intellectual challenges of the early twentieth century, including the modernist/fundamentalist controversy. One commonality that surfaces is that both church bodies appropriated pre‐modern hermeneutical impulses for “counter modern” biblical apologetics. In this process the LC‐MS privileged the period of Lutheran Orthodoxy (17th century) while the ELCA constructed its hermeneutical paradigm through a recovery of the early Reformation (Luther). This observation suggests that both interpretive trajectories need further historical as well as theological review and revision.
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