Endnote 12 – Keep Each Tradition Separate

Prior to the first century, the hermeneutic of inspiration of sacred literature was basically dynamic, in which the focus was on the message conveyed; during the first century the hermeneutic shifted to “verbal inspiration” out of the need to have Scripture address rapidly changing problems in Judaism not directly addressed by the plain sense of earlier biblical messages. See Sanders, “Text and Canon: Concepts and Method,” Journal of Biblical Literature 98 (1979), pp. 5–29, and From Sacred Story to Sacred Text (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 1987), pp. 125–191.