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''Sensus plenior'' is a
''Sensus plenior'' is a Latin
Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...
phrase that means "fuller sense" or "fuller meaning". It is used in Biblical exegesis
Exegesis ( ; from the Ancient Greek, Greek , from , "to lead out") is a critical explanation or interpretation (philosophy), interpretation of a text. The term is traditionally applied to the interpretation of Bible, Biblical works. In modern us ...
to describe the supposed deeper meaning intended by God
In monotheistic belief systems, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator, and principal object of faith. In polytheistic belief systems, a god is "a spirit or being believed to have created, or for controlling some part of the un ...
but not by the human author. Walter C. Kaiser notes that the term was coined by F. Andre Fernandez in 1927 but was popularized by Raymond E. Brown
Raymond Edward Brown (May 22, 1928 – August 8, 1998) was an American Sulpician priest and prominent biblical scholar. He was a specialist on the hypothetical Johannine community, which he speculated contributed to the authorship of the Gosp ...
.
Brown defines ''sensus plenior'' as
That implies that more meaning can be found within scripture than the original human authors intended and so the study of scripture that isolates a particular book and concerns itself only with the details of the author's time and situation can be incomplete.
''Sensus plenior'' corresponds to rabbinical interpretations of the Hebrew Scriptures, ''remez'' ("hint"), ''drash'' ("search"), and/or ''sod'' ("secret"), by which deeper meaning is drawn out or from the text.
John Goldingay
John Edgar Goldingay (born 20 June 1942) is a British Old Testament scholar and translator and Anglican cleric. He is the David Allan Hubbard Professor Emeritus of Old Testament in the School of Theology of Fuller Theological Seminary in Califo ...
suggests that the citation of Isaiah 7:14 in Matthew 1:23 is a "stock example" of ''sensus plenior''.
Conservative Christians have used the term to mean the larger or whole teaching of scripture.
See also
*Peshat
''Peshat'' (also ''P'shat'', ) is one of the two classic methods of Jewish biblical exegesis, the other being Derash. While ''Peshat'' is commonly defined as referring to the surface or literal (direct) meaning of a text,Goldin, S. (2007). Unloc ...
References
Additional references
*Raymond E. Brown
Raymond Edward Brown (May 22, 1928 – August 8, 1998) was an American Sulpician priest and prominent biblical scholar. He was a specialist on the hypothetical Johannine community, which he speculated contributed to the authorship of the Gosp ...
, "The History and Development of the Theory of a ''Sensus Plenior''," CBQ 15 (1953) 141 - 162.
* ''The Jerome Biblical Commentary'' Vol. 1 1971, Geoffry Chapman Publishers, London, pp. 605–23.
* David H. Stern, ''Jewish New Testament Commentary'' 1992, Maryland, pp. 11–4.
External links
* * {{cite journal , author=Matthew W.I. Dunn , date=September 2007 , title=Raymond Brown and the sensus plenior interpretation of the Bible , journal=Studies in Religion , volume= 36 , issue=3–4 , pages=531–551 , doi=10.1177/000842980703600306 Biblical exegesis Latin religious words and phrases