What is 'Hermeneutics'?

"Hermeneutics" refers to the science of principles of interpretation of the Scriptures. "Interpretation" can be used in both a broad sense to refer to the entire circle of understanding that constitutes hermeneutics and in a narrow sense to refer to one of the movements within this circle.' [Peter C. Hodgson. Winds of the Spirit, (London: SCM Press, 1994), p.10.]

In discussing what is involved in using the Bible in theology, Marshall identifies three levels in the discussion of interpretation:

1. First, the level of general hermeneutics, which asks what is going on in interpretation in general and then in biblical interpretation in particular…The first example is the question of whether texts can have "meaning" in themselves, meaning that is objectively there, or whether meaning is somehow created afresh through the interaction between the reader and the text, it being assumed that texts in themselves have not fixed meaning: clearly, this has considerable implications for our understanding of biblical authority. The second example is the question of how language "works" - how texts work, the role of their authors and their readers and so on. Study of these matters helps us to have some idea about what we may legitimately expect from different kinds of texts, how we should approach them, and what are the implications of this for recognizing what is actually going on in biblical texts and in our reading of them…
2. Second, there is the level of exegesis. Here we consider the specific procedures that may be applied to textual study, such as linguistic study, contextual study, source criticism and much else. These methods and tools are used in approaching a text so as to understand it as it was understood or was meant to be understood in its own time.
3. Third, there is the level of exposition or application, where we raise the question of how to determine what an ancient text is saying to contemporary readers as opposed to original readers.'

[Howard Marshall, Beyond the Bible: Moving from Scripture to Theology (Milton Keynes: Paternoster, 2004), pp. 13-15.]