Authorial Intent of Communication

There are three broad areas of thought about where the meaning of Scripture is best originated. In that meaning either comes from the author, text, or the reader of Scripture in a more effective way to understand the communicative intent of what is written in the Living Word. To develop a reliable and effective hermeneutic, Dr. Brown has developed a Scriptural communication model that evaluates the merits of each approach and ties together a coherent way of developing a personal and community-based hermeneutic that honors the intent of the Bible and our LORD.

By spending a lot of time in Dr. Brown’s book, I have developed some opinions about what is largely of interest to the personal and structured study of Scripture and its relevance.

The meaning of Scripture best lies with the author. More specifically, meaning rests with Yahweh through various authors throughout Scripture.¹ As Biblical writers communicate in their local contexts, they demonstrate perlocutionary intentions to their audience. Their literary expressions go beyond a full understanding of what becomes communicated.² Their communicative act to warn, advise, praise, inform, invite, and so forth calls for interpretation and actualization among those who would listen or read what they have to say. Regardless of verbal and literary form, meaning becomes adapted and transposed to new contexts among listeners and readers. Meaning retains its purpose and integrity as to how it becomes applicable rests with individuals and communities. 

Dr. Brown’s communication model about meaning comes with several affirmations.³ Her arguments throughout the book were summarized as having various contributing factors, one of which specifies meaning as “author-derived but textually communicated.” Subordinate to the communicative intention of Biblical authors, readers attend to Scripture by contextualization. Readers who appropriate Scripture in their local culture by interpretation and “illumination” from settled and reliable meaning for relevant use as communicated from authors of the Bible.

These affirmations that Dr. Brown wrote coincide with what we come to understand and accept as the root and origin of meaning. Largely because of a newly developed view about the subjective nature of reader interpretation and the limits to what autonomous texts can provide without arbitration from an author.

1. Brown, Jeannine K. Scripture as Communication: Introducing Biblical Hermeneutics. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Academic, 2007, 92
2. Ibid, 114
3. Ibid, 99