INDUCTIVE BIBLE STUDY

Here's another book review. This book may be a little intense for the average layperson, but it might make a great gift for the pastor of your church. 😏

Review of David R. Bauer and Robert A. Traina, Inductive Bible Study: A Comprehensive Guide to the Practice of Hermeneutics, Baker Academic: Grand Rapids, 2011.

 

Introduction: The Champions of Induction

F. Scott Fitzgerald once famously noted, “Writing is hard. And if it’s not, you’re doing it wrong.” The same could be said of reading, at least when it comes to a book as deep and multi-layered as the bible. If it is easy, it is likely because the reader is mapping his or her own unexamined presuppositions onto the scriptures. If the reader is a preacher, this sort of deductive approach leaves the biblical message not only unseen by the reader but also unheard by the congregation. David Bauer and Robert Traina wrote Inductive Bible Study to champion, and then to explain step-by-step, an approach to scripture which seeks to draw plausible inferences of meaning from careful inspection of the text and context.

 

The Steps

Before detailing each step of their inductive process, Bauer and Traina begin by defining induction as a practice and establishing its advantages over deduction as a method of studying scripture. They describe the deductive “spirit” as “dogmatic and authoritarian, absolute and categorical, characterized by a closed mind” (18). The authors explain that an inductive approach is the opposite, making no assumptions and seeking to evaluate carefully all textual evidence and only then drawing conclusions (19). Central to this process is a focus on the “implied author” and what that author wrote to his “implied audience”. This keeps the meaning of the text itself front and center (45-46).

Having made their case for the benefits of an inductive approach to scripture, Bauer and Traina next lay out the first steps: the reader must observe what is there in the text and then ask questions about what is observed. The authors urge readers to look closely at the text, being perceptive, exact, persistent, and impartial (76-78). This careful inspection and questioning is to be carried out at three levels: the biblical book as a coherent whole, then the parts of that book, before focusing on the smaller passage at hand (78). The book is read in its entirety before its major unit of thoughts are noted and relationships between those units are described. Then, the reader is to consider the specific type of literary form at the section level of observation. It is at the passage level, though, where observations will likely play the greatest role in providing the evidence needed for proper interpretation of the text (164).

Now that the reader has questioned the text on all three levels, Bauer and Traina are ready to raise important considerations for the reader in answering those questions, i.e., interpreting the passage. Foundational to this step of interpretation is keeping in mind “the biblical text arose out of cultures that have a profound strangeness to most modern readers, and the text possesses a depth and thickness of meaning” which is not necessarily obvious on the surface (178). According to the authors, the thoughtful interpreter draws inferences in response to the questions he or she has already posed, selected on the basis of importance and relevancy. This is to be done in awareness of research into history, etymology, and other relevant topics. It is at this point in the process that Bauer and Traina give permission to consult biblical commentaries, as long as they are exegetical in nature (233). The authors also outline numerous fallacies which interpreters are prone to commit, fueled by ignorance or over confidence, and how best to avoid them (249 ff.)

Closely tied to interpretation, in the authors’ minds, is the successive step of evaluation, which in turn leads to appropriation (290). Evaluation involves determining a text’s value and relevancy to the implied audience while appropriation requires discernment of what in the text is transcendent and how that transcendent meaning may be applied to a present-day audience (319). This must be done in light of “the central concept in the Bible”, namely “the lordship of God” over human lives (300).

Bauer and Traina’s final step, correlation, is the synthesis of meaning either across various books by the same author or across the biblical canon as a whole (337). Ideally, this is a process which builds over time with the reader’s ever-growing familiarity with the bible. In this lifelong pursuit, the authors again warn against falling into certain fallacies, like overgeneralization (346).

 

Conclusion: Truly a Comprehensive Guide

In this reviewer’s experience, the average sermon preached in the average American church, to the extent it is based on scripture in any meaningful way, is constructed on a shaky, deductive foundation. As a result, the preacher’s word supplants God’s word, forestalling the edification and transformation of the congregation, not to mention that of the pastor.

In Inductive Bible Study, David Bauer and Robert Traina make a compelling case for studying the bible inductively. They then proceed to outline each step of their method in detail. They do not oversell inductive reasoning as somehow guaranteeing arrival at “absolute certainty” of the Truth, but rather for greater “degrees of probability” (287). There can be little doubt of the preferability of induction over deduction for those who hope to discover what message the text itself seeks to convey.  

If there is a drawback to the book it is that Bauer and Traina’s thoroughness is bound to leave the average pastor feeling overwhelmed and inadequate. For my part, while reading Inductive Bible Study, I have never felt greater regret over my own ignorance of Greek and Hebrew. Preaching God’s word is a serious responsibility. Limitations on time and expertise are a reality and will always negatively impact the pastor’s ability to carry the Lord’s message to a congregation. Nevertheless, the Spirit is accustomed to using jars of clay and the authors’ tone is one of encouragement toward excellence and accuracy. Bauer and Traina have much wisdom to contribute to any seeking to become “a worker who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth” (2 Tim 2:15 NIV).