WORD-STUDY FALLACIES: (condensed from Carson's book)
1)The root fallacy – “pineapple” is not an apple growing on a pine
2)Semantic anachronism – dynamite is etymologically derived from “dunamis”, then, the idea of dynamite is read back into dunamis.
3)Semantic obsolescence – Is “head of the family” origin or source? It’s not so in Hellenistic Greek, only in classical Greek.
4)Appeal to unknown or unlikely meanings – ‘The law’ refers to rabbinic tradition?
5)Careless appeal to background info – born of water and Spirit (water can be referred to sperm) so physical birth and spiritual birth? Purification by water and new spirit in Ezekiel 36:25-27.
6) Verbal parallelomania – John’s prologue is compared to other remote literature to prove dependency – Bultmann and Dodd?
7) Link of language and mentality – Ancient Hebrews unable to understand past, present and future because only two aspects in their language? False assumption about technical terms – ‘sanctification’ and ‘baptism of Spirit’
8)Problems with synonyms and componential analysis – agape and phileo?
9)Selective use of evidence - Hebrew knowing is experiential, not intellectual? Knowing God is obeying and loving others but also content in John 4:50, 5:47, 13:19, 17:21)
10)Unwarranted semantic disjunctions/restrictions – false either/or meanings. E.g. the headship of Jesus – either He as Head has authority to control and demand obedience OR as Head, He is source/origin and stoops to lift us up?
11)Unwarranted restriction of semantic field – Judaism is only a technical term for a sectarian exclusiveness against Hellenist and not religion of the Jews? This is my body? “IS” could mean Fulfillment, Resemblance, Cause, Attribute or identity?
12)Unwarranted broadening of semantic range – ‘church’ (universal?) in Acts 7:38
13)Problems relating to Semitic background of Greek NT – Methodologically irresponsible to read Hebrew word into Greek equivalent
14)Neglect distinguishing peculiarities of a corpus – a fallacy that one NT writer uses a word (call/justification) with the same meaning as other NT writers
15)Unwarranted linking of sense and reference – The meaning of words in a grammatically coherent array (Three is a prime number) is different from the theoretical referent of each word (Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Locke, Berkeley)
LOGICAL FALLACIES:
1)False Dichotomy – Either you follow grammatical-historical approach OR you interpret 144,000 as referring to Christian church? (allegorical) Either salvation is Free or there is a demand? (Zane Hodges)
2)Failure to recognize distinctions – the fallacy that x and y are alike in certain respects they are alike in all respects.
3)Selective use of evidence – Should women remain absolutely silent? Evidence of permission to pray and prophesy must also be taken into account
4)Improper syllogisms – The seven men in Acts 6:1-6 are deacons, They spoke publicly and baptized, therefore deacons (women included in Timothy 3:11) can speak publicly and baptize. Did the seven preach and baptize in their capacity as deacons?
5)World view confusion – Religious mystics of the East (Swami) interpret NT as if their experiences and interpretation of reality is proper framework to interpret NT texts. “Blessed are those who purify their consciences, for they shall see that they themselves are God”. The need for distanciation, or our baggage is read into it. Recognize our presuppositions help to dialogue with text to come to real knowledge.
6)Question-framing: Why have you stopped beating your wife? Is Paul Libertine or Legalist? Make your choice.
7)Confusion of truth and precision: My house is not far from office. It is true even if imprecise. (My house is 1.1 km away from office)
8)Emotive appeals: Emotional appeal based on truth reflects conviction but emotion as a substitute for truth is worthless. E.g. “Calling, and not sex, is the test of authentic ministry. The church is called to prove the spirits, not determine the gender”. Has the author proven that “prove the spirits” is determine the competency as against determine the gender? Otherwise, they might be complementary.
9)Unwarranted generalization and over specification – Paul taught that if you were already circumcised, you should continue in the Law – overgeneralization. (Gal 5:3, 1 Cor 7:18). Or the Command-Model (perceive headship in terms of authority and right to demand obedience/perceives biblical headship that wife’s potential when he relieves her of burdens not rightly hers) as versus Servant-Model (encourage wife to maximize potential and use abilities/hen-pecked, sends wife to war). The Mormon says Jeremiah 1:15 refers to Jeremiah’s “spirit child/intelligence” only, but the context says nothing of that sort. (over specified)
10)Negative Inferences from a proposition. All orthodox Jews believe in Moses, Dave is not an orthodox Jew therefore he does not believe in Moses. (change all with only)
11)Unwarranted associative jumps: I can do all things (to include anything like jump over the moon, anything God has called)
12)False statements: Inaccurate information
13)Non sequitur: It does not follow from the arguments
14)Cavalier dismissal: “Obviously, this is unbelievably impossible.” (unless he changes his framework)
15)Equivocal arguments: (vague, hide more than it explains) Paul’s view of Law in Galatians 3:12, cruces interpretum. F.F. Bruce wrote, “True, in the context of Leviticus 18:5, the promise of life to those who do God’s commands is a genuine promise, but Paul indicates that with the coming of the gospel that way of life has now been closed, even if once it was open and it is doubtful if he would concede even this”
16) Inadequate analogies: Judge pardons a convict, does his acceptance of forgiveness meritorious? To be accurate, the analogy should give the case where one convict accepts and the other rejects, what differentiates them is not the judge’s grace but the convict’s choice. The role and place of grace is different.
17)Abuse of “obviously”: Inappropriate when there are strong arguments otherwise
18)Simplistic appeals to authority: simply prove that the interpreter is under the person/majority/tradition’s influence
Presuppositional/Historical Fallacies:
1)The new hermeneutics argue that objective meaning in a text is illusory because of our baggage which interacts with the text and comes back with fresh questions. Polysemy is a theory that a text has many meanings and its validity depends on effect on interpreter. (circle) No, it’s not a vicious cycle, more of a hermeneutical spiral where we can get to the meaning more truly with each interaction.
2)Uncontrolled historical reconstruction: Since little is known about the first 6 decades of the Church, many speculative frameworks have been put forth by form critics (Bultmanian) like the early charismatic, parousia-expecting Christians led to later early Catholic, long-haul Christians. So references to ‘elders’ in Pastoral epistles must be a latter document.
3)Fallacies of causation: History of religion school argues that Christianity is off-shoot of Gnosticism: “fallacy that if A follows B, the cause is B”, Paul wants to preach Christ crucified alone in Corinth after the trip to Athens (misunderstood Luke’s purpose and connect two separate documents causally without evidence) “mistakes correlation with cause”, “putting the effect before the cause”, “mistakes a causal for a logical order, vice versa”, “reduces complexity to simplicity or diversity to uniformity”, and the fallacy of responsibility as cause “confuses the problem of ethics with a problem of agency in a way that falsifies both.”
4)Fallacies of motivation: psychoanalyze without access to patient, redaction criticism. Every redactional change must have a reason behind it. Gundry’s commentary on Matthew presupposes that birth narratives are dependant on Luke so ‘stable’ is changed to ‘house’ in the Magi’s visit to fit theological motif. But does Gundry have access to Matthew’s mind apart from the text?
5)Conceptual parallelomania: Especially susceptible to folks with a specialized knowledge in psychology/science/Greek classics that Scripture can be explained or linked back to these disciplines.
6)Omission of distanciation/import our theological baggage: Protestants scrambling to identify the rock (as not Peter) because of centuries of papal abuse. The need to do historical theology in order to acknowledge our own presuppositions. Our minds are not tabula rasa.
1)The root fallacy – “pineapple” is not an apple growing on a pine
2)Semantic anachronism – dynamite is etymologically derived from “dunamis”, then, the idea of dynamite is read back into dunamis.
3)Semantic obsolescence – Is “head of the family” origin or source? It’s not so in Hellenistic Greek, only in classical Greek.
4)Appeal to unknown or unlikely meanings – ‘The law’ refers to rabbinic tradition?
5)Careless appeal to background info – born of water and Spirit (water can be referred to sperm) so physical birth and spiritual birth? Purification by water and new spirit in Ezekiel 36:25-27.
6) Verbal parallelomania – John’s prologue is compared to other remote literature to prove dependency – Bultmann and Dodd?
7) Link of language and mentality – Ancient Hebrews unable to understand past, present and future because only two aspects in their language? False assumption about technical terms – ‘sanctification’ and ‘baptism of Spirit’
8)Problems with synonyms and componential analysis – agape and phileo?
9)Selective use of evidence - Hebrew knowing is experiential, not intellectual? Knowing God is obeying and loving others but also content in John 4:50, 5:47, 13:19, 17:21)
10)Unwarranted semantic disjunctions/restrictions – false either/or meanings. E.g. the headship of Jesus – either He as Head has authority to control and demand obedience OR as Head, He is source/origin and stoops to lift us up?
11)Unwarranted restriction of semantic field – Judaism is only a technical term for a sectarian exclusiveness against Hellenist and not religion of the Jews? This is my body? “IS” could mean Fulfillment, Resemblance, Cause, Attribute or identity?
12)Unwarranted broadening of semantic range – ‘church’ (universal?) in Acts 7:38
13)Problems relating to Semitic background of Greek NT – Methodologically irresponsible to read Hebrew word into Greek equivalent
14)Neglect distinguishing peculiarities of a corpus – a fallacy that one NT writer uses a word (call/justification) with the same meaning as other NT writers
15)Unwarranted linking of sense and reference – The meaning of words in a grammatically coherent array (Three is a prime number) is different from the theoretical referent of each word (Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Locke, Berkeley)
LOGICAL FALLACIES:
1)False Dichotomy – Either you follow grammatical-historical approach OR you interpret 144,000 as referring to Christian church? (allegorical) Either salvation is Free or there is a demand? (Zane Hodges)
2)Failure to recognize distinctions – the fallacy that x and y are alike in certain respects they are alike in all respects.
3)Selective use of evidence – Should women remain absolutely silent? Evidence of permission to pray and prophesy must also be taken into account
4)Improper syllogisms – The seven men in Acts 6:1-6 are deacons, They spoke publicly and baptized, therefore deacons (women included in Timothy 3:11) can speak publicly and baptize. Did the seven preach and baptize in their capacity as deacons?
5)World view confusion – Religious mystics of the East (Swami) interpret NT as if their experiences and interpretation of reality is proper framework to interpret NT texts. “Blessed are those who purify their consciences, for they shall see that they themselves are God”. The need for distanciation, or our baggage is read into it. Recognize our presuppositions help to dialogue with text to come to real knowledge.
6)Question-framing: Why have you stopped beating your wife? Is Paul Libertine or Legalist? Make your choice.
7)Confusion of truth and precision: My house is not far from office. It is true even if imprecise. (My house is 1.1 km away from office)
8)Emotive appeals: Emotional appeal based on truth reflects conviction but emotion as a substitute for truth is worthless. E.g. “Calling, and not sex, is the test of authentic ministry. The church is called to prove the spirits, not determine the gender”. Has the author proven that “prove the spirits” is determine the competency as against determine the gender? Otherwise, they might be complementary.
9)Unwarranted generalization and over specification – Paul taught that if you were already circumcised, you should continue in the Law – overgeneralization. (Gal 5:3, 1 Cor 7:18). Or the Command-Model (perceive headship in terms of authority and right to demand obedience/perceives biblical headship that wife’s potential when he relieves her of burdens not rightly hers) as versus Servant-Model (encourage wife to maximize potential and use abilities/hen-pecked, sends wife to war). The Mormon says Jeremiah 1:15 refers to Jeremiah’s “spirit child/intelligence” only, but the context says nothing of that sort. (over specified)
10)Negative Inferences from a proposition. All orthodox Jews believe in Moses, Dave is not an orthodox Jew therefore he does not believe in Moses. (change all with only)
11)Unwarranted associative jumps: I can do all things (to include anything like jump over the moon, anything God has called)
12)False statements: Inaccurate information
13)Non sequitur: It does not follow from the arguments
14)Cavalier dismissal: “Obviously, this is unbelievably impossible.” (unless he changes his framework)
15)Equivocal arguments: (vague, hide more than it explains) Paul’s view of Law in Galatians 3:12, cruces interpretum. F.F. Bruce wrote, “True, in the context of Leviticus 18:5, the promise of life to those who do God’s commands is a genuine promise, but Paul indicates that with the coming of the gospel that way of life has now been closed, even if once it was open and it is doubtful if he would concede even this”
16) Inadequate analogies: Judge pardons a convict, does his acceptance of forgiveness meritorious? To be accurate, the analogy should give the case where one convict accepts and the other rejects, what differentiates them is not the judge’s grace but the convict’s choice. The role and place of grace is different.
17)Abuse of “obviously”: Inappropriate when there are strong arguments otherwise
18)Simplistic appeals to authority: simply prove that the interpreter is under the person/majority/tradition’s influence
Presuppositional/Historical Fallacies:
1)The new hermeneutics argue that objective meaning in a text is illusory because of our baggage which interacts with the text and comes back with fresh questions. Polysemy is a theory that a text has many meanings and its validity depends on effect on interpreter. (circle) No, it’s not a vicious cycle, more of a hermeneutical spiral where we can get to the meaning more truly with each interaction.
2)Uncontrolled historical reconstruction: Since little is known about the first 6 decades of the Church, many speculative frameworks have been put forth by form critics (Bultmanian) like the early charismatic, parousia-expecting Christians led to later early Catholic, long-haul Christians. So references to ‘elders’ in Pastoral epistles must be a latter document.
3)Fallacies of causation: History of religion school argues that Christianity is off-shoot of Gnosticism: “fallacy that if A follows B, the cause is B”, Paul wants to preach Christ crucified alone in Corinth after the trip to Athens (misunderstood Luke’s purpose and connect two separate documents causally without evidence) “mistakes correlation with cause”, “putting the effect before the cause”, “mistakes a causal for a logical order, vice versa”, “reduces complexity to simplicity or diversity to uniformity”, and the fallacy of responsibility as cause “confuses the problem of ethics with a problem of agency in a way that falsifies both.”
4)Fallacies of motivation: psychoanalyze without access to patient, redaction criticism. Every redactional change must have a reason behind it. Gundry’s commentary on Matthew presupposes that birth narratives are dependant on Luke so ‘stable’ is changed to ‘house’ in the Magi’s visit to fit theological motif. But does Gundry have access to Matthew’s mind apart from the text?
5)Conceptual parallelomania: Especially susceptible to folks with a specialized knowledge in psychology/science/Greek classics that Scripture can be explained or linked back to these disciplines.
6)Omission of distanciation/import our theological baggage: Protestants scrambling to identify the rock (as not Peter) because of centuries of papal abuse. The need to do historical theology in order to acknowledge our own presuppositions. Our minds are not tabula rasa.
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