Hermeneutical Question

[Archaea]

How to interpret scripture is often debated, and a reasonable way of interpreting it is context, understanding of the cultural setting and purpose. This hermeneutic is clear even if its application in specific instances is not.

However, how do we address the gloss of leaders relative to scripture?

What I mean is this, our leaders have often commented upon a scripture or two, adding or subtracting therefrom to provide a potential insight. For example, I can think of President Kimball's interpretation of Peter's denial of Christ, wherein President Kimball opined that Christ gave an imperative to deny him, not a prophetic prediction. Now the sources don't support that interpretation necessarily, but it's a nice insight.

Do members here when they hear such interpretative suggestions take them as "revelations", which may be the majority position, or do you take them as alternative counsel for a theological thematic argument?

[Indy Coug]

Originally Posted by Archaea

For example, I can think of President Kimball's interpretation of Peter's denial of Christ, wherein President Kimball opined that Christ gave an imperative to deny him, not a prophetic prediction. Now the sources don't support that interpretation necessarily, but it's a nice insight.

Link? I'd like to read his comments in their entirety.

[pelagius]

Originally Posted by Indy Coug

Link? I'd like to read his comments in their entirety.

http://www.ldsces.org/inst_manuals/n...in-13.htm#13-d

You can also listen to it on mp3 here: http://speeches.byu.edu/?act=viewitem&id=703

Full Reference: Spencer W. Kimball, “Peter, My Brother,” BYU Speeches of the Year, July 13, 1971.

We discussed the talk on the guard in this thread:

http://cougarguard.com/forum/showthread.php?t=8977

There is also a nice discussion here:

http://www.timesandseasons.org/?p=3055

[Archaea]

Another example is when Joseph Smith alluded to the fact in giving a sermon about something else that Paul wrote Hebrews, which is not currently believed by scholars.

The Smith reference seemed more like a reference to help the reader remember Hebrews a letter generally attributable to Paul, rather than to express a revelation confirming its authenticity.

[pelagius]

Originally Posted by Archaea

What I mean is this, our leaders have often commented upon a scripture or two, adding or subtracting therefrom to provide a potential insight. For example, I can think of President Kimball's interpretation of Peter's denial of Christ, wherein President Kimball opined that Christ gave an imperative to deny him, not a prophetic prediction. Now the sources don't support that interpretation necessarily, but it's a nice insight.

In general, I don't think many leaders actually interpret scripture very frequently. Obviously you have found a clear counter example where a leader did just that. However, most of the time I would argue that leaders teach doctrines and use scripture to illustrate or underscore their point or teachings about a doctrine instead of providing an explication of the scripture itself. I do think there is a difference between those two situations and it implies that we should be careful about the inferences we draw about interpreting or explicating such scriptures with source material that wasn't really intended to explicate (on the other hand it may give us very clear signals about how to interpret or explicate a doctrinal principle).