Hermeneutics is the study of the principles by which we can interpret texts in order to bring out their meaning. We are applying hermeneutics when we recognise the genre of a text, whether it is history, poetry, parable etc. An example of this kind of principle is that as the Bible is a unified whole, one text will not contradict another text. Another is that in each text of the Bible, we find both the Gospel of Christ and the Wisdom of God. Our belief about how we can interpret a text will have a dramatic impact on what we think each passage is saying.
