What Is Exegesis?

I created Into the New Testament as a way to give my students at Luther Seminary practice using several close reading skills to look at portions of the New Testament. With lots of help, I've made it available on the web so that anyone who is interested in the topic can read background materials, work through problem-based practice activities and receive feedback online.

Exegesis:  Describe and Decide

"When in doubt, describe."

What is "exegesis"? Whenever you see a glossary icon like the one at the left, you can click on it for a pop up window that will tell you more about the word in red. Click on the glossary icon above for a definition of exegesis.

One of my New Testament teachers was fond of saying, "When in doubt, describe." When you don't know what else to do, describe. That is, say what you see.  That is where exegesis starts.

Describe + Decide

From describing, exegetes move to developing a thesis about what the things we are seeing mean. When you go to the doctor, you report symptoms, and almost immediately, the doctor starts testing out a provisional diagnosis. The doctor is almost simultaneously gathering data and testing out a preliminary decision about what that data means. Describe and decide are working hand in hand.

“Exegesis is a process of going back and forth between describing things you notice in a text and deciding what those things contribute to your understanding of the text.”

Your car mechanic gathers information from your description of the problem and from listening to the engine, also maybe from hooking the car up to a diagnostic computer. Gathering all that information is an example of what I mean by "describe." Of course, the job of fixing your car also requires "decide" steps. Someone needs to make a decision about what the information adds up to if the problem is ever going to be addressed. Exegesis is a process of going back and forth between describing things you notice in a text and deciding what those things contribute to your understanding of the text.

So many details, so little time.

One of the things that makes exegesis hard is that there are lots of things to notice, but many of them are, well, not particularly relevant to a text's meaning, or even all that interesting. (Think how your doctor has to sort through all the bits of data that you and your lab results offer, ignoring some things on purpose, yet careful not to miss the important stuff. It takes time to learn how to do this kind of sorting and analyzing.) Exegesis is not just writing down a list of everything under the sun you discover about a text. Exegesis is looking closely and then beginning to connect your observations into an interpretation—a reading—of the text.

By the way, some people draw a distinction between "exegesis" (as the more dispassionate activity) and "interpretation" (as more subjective), but I am not one of them. Exegesis is, at its best, both a disciplined and an imaginative way of interpreting.

Three Moments, Nine Units

I divide exegesis into three moments. First, you Zoom In on a particular biblical text: that is, you get a sense of the flow of the text and its general meaning. What is going on? Skills associated with this moment in exegesis are: Tracing Action & Argument, Comparing Similar Texts, and Comparing Translations.

Next comes the moment called Looking Around. Here you read the text again and you work with outside resources to help you with Paying Attention to Time, Paying Attention to Place, and Getting to Know Characters. Completing a Word Study is also part of this moment in exegesis.

Finally, you Zoom Out. You look at the context of your text within Scripture and the context for which you are reading. The skills associated with this moment are Seeing the Big Picture and Doing Something Creative.

I use the word "unit" here to encompass both the resource pages and the practice activities associated with any one skill. Into the New Testament has nine units. Here is how the site is organized:

Where Should You Begin?

The nine units are listed on the Skills page in the order in which I teach them in my introduction to the synoptic gospels. The skills make sense to me this way, and I commend the order to you. However, if you want to start with something besides Comparing Translations, or move in a zigzag around the Activity Grid, that's fine. Do whatever you are most interested in or curious about.

Next: Story Problems for Exegetes