A Distinct Twenty-First Century Pentecostal Hermeneutic, Harlyn Graydon Purdy

DAVID MITCHELL

Eucharisma 1, (Spring 2024), 83-85.

A review of Purdy, Harlyn Graydon. A Distinct Twenty-First Century Pentecostal Hermeneutic. Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2015. 

With this book, Purdy enters the 20 year or more long debate on whether it is justified to speak of a distinctive Pentecostal hermeneutic. 

While in a review I would ordinarily survey the book and engage what I think are its main strengths and weaknesses, this volume has demanded a different approach. Purdy argues on New Testament (NT) grounds for a distinct Pentecostal hermeneutical model; the whole book rises or falls on the strength of that argument. While I have approached this book with curiosity and openness, I was puzzled by his NT examples and on scrutinizing them found them insufficient. Thus, I will briefly comment on the book as a whole, but because it depends largely on its NT foundations, I will examine the crux of those arguments in more detail before offering final remarks.

The book is divided into six chapters with two appendices, one being a syllabus for an undergraduate course with this book as a primary text. The author is writing from within an African Pentecostal context and is concerned to provide a corrective to excessively subjective interpretation of Scripture which he sees in global Pentecostalism, not least where he lives. This is a noble goal. His discussion of early Pentecostal interpretation, with the latter rain motif and a Lukan lens informing it, is helpful (chapter 2). His later discussion of the place of modern interpretive concepts is a balanced effort to integrate tools such as narrative criticism and reader-response into a hermeneutical framework that honours the text (chapter 5).

Purdy is arguing for a hermeneutic involving an interplay of Scripture, Spirit, gifted leader, and community (e.g. chapter 6). He builds this primarily on an examination of apostolic leaders’ use of OT texts in Acts 2 and Acts 15 (61), with further support briefly drawn from three other NT texts (chapter 2). 

For all its potential, the book unfortunately does not deliver. This is because the author misreads and misuses the main texts he selects as the foundation for his hermeneutical model. This is a strong assertion, and I regret having to make it. Space does not permit a thorough discussion, but I will indicate key difficulties in the author’s use of Acts 2 and 15.

Regarding Acts 2 (63-66), Purdy states that Peter’s use of Joel in Acts 2 provides ‘helpful insight into how the contemporary Pentecostal hermeneut should operate.’ (65). He discusses differences between Peter’s rendering and ‘the inspired words of Joel’. He notes that parts of the language and order of Joel 2:28-32 are changed. He concludes that ‘Scripture’s use of Scripture in Luke’s recounting of Peter’s sermon portrays the interpreter (Peter) as involved in manipulating the text and the creation of meaning’ (66). 

However, he’s reached this conclusion without bringing the reader through a logical thought process. He’s not told us whether he’s comparing Peter’s (or Luke’s) citation of Joel with LXX or with MT. He’s not discussed whether the changes in the text in fact reflect a change of meaning or whether, as Keener evaluates, Luke changes it to illuminate its meaning . He asserts without providing evidence that Peter ‘was creatively engaged in the creation of new meaning. This provides a biblical foundation for a twenty-first century Pentecostal hermeneutic whereby the Spirit and reader are actively engaged with the text in the creation of meaning.’ (66). The argument is unconvincing.

Turning to Acts 15 (67-72) as the second plank of support for his hermeneutical model, the author’s language is opaque and his argument is based on a misreading of the text.

He  discusses what James does in quoting from Amos 9:11-12, arguing that James has given ‘new meaning to this ancient text,’ by unexpectedly taking an OT prophecy about  ‘a remnant of people (Israelites) [who] would seek God,’ and applying it to Gentiles rather than to Jews (68). Purdy says James is ‘creating meaning.’ However, James does not take a text about Israel and make it about Gentiles; James does not claim to be creating meaning. Rather, in citing Amos, he claims that ‘the words of the prophets are in agreement with this’ (15:15), that is, with Peter’s testimony of Gentiles receiving the Spirit. The citation of Amos in Acts 15:15-18 has a particular emphasis on Gentiles, and they are the ones in the text who seek God: ‘that the rest of mankind may seek the Lord, even all the Gentiles who bear my name.’ Purdy’s assertion that James makes a text about Jews to be about Gentiles is plainly incorrect.

It is hard to know how Purdy made this mistake. If he had quoted the passage from Acts 15, the language of the citation itself would have laid the error bare; but he does not. It appears he has not properly read it. It seems he has fixed on James’ use of laos before the Amos citation (‘Simon has described how God first intervened to choose a people (laos) for his name from the Gentiles,’ v14), and its common reference to the Jewish people. Apparently, Purdy thinks the Greek rendering of Amos 9:11-12 speaks of Jews who ‘would seek God’ (68), and that it uses the term laos in referring to them, and that James creatively re-interprets an instance of laos in the Amos citation to refer to Gentiles. However, the first two of these assumptions are incorrect, and thus also the third. In the process of making this error, the author also misrepresents a source on whom he bases his misunderstanding of laos. In summary, Acts 15 does not have James creatively reinterpreting an OT text about Jews into one about Gentiles, providing us with a distinct Pentecostal hermeneutical model.

The problem is not simply that Purdy has misread or misinterpreted the text. The problem is that he is seeking to build on this text a basis for a particular hermeneutic that involves ‘creation of meaning’ (66). This is a significant departure from traditional biblical hermeneutics and needs a high threshold of evidence. The example from Acts 2 is thin and unconvincing. The example from Acts 15 misreads the text under study and is unhelpful to the author’s case. The hermeneutical model the book promotes lacks the exegetical foundation it claims. Whether there may be something to the model the author proposes remains to be seen, but it cannot be supported using the exegetical materials he provides.

A contributing problem is the lack of exegetical work done. The writer makes virtually no use of and seems essentially unaware of the literature on Acts 2, Joel 2, Acts 15 or Amos 9. He completes the bulk of his exegesis of the Joel 2 citation in one long paragraph; the Amos 9 citation gets an even shorter paragraph of exegetical treatment. This lack of rigor seems odd as the premise of the entire book rests on the author’s reading of Acts 2 and Acts 15. His interaction with supporting NT texts is briefer still and open to similar critique as above.

I appreciate the intention of the author, and there is some useful material along the way. One big takeaway for me is that in any effort to build a hermeneutic that is defended by Scripture itself, I’d better make doubly sure I’m reading the text well, engaging with the literature on the text, anticipating objections, and engaging it in depth. Perhaps these thoughts may be useful should the author consider a revised edition in future.