One of the most thrilling developments in the Bible study area happened with John Ruskin’s 1857 publication of the laws of composition. Ruskin proposed nine laws of composition, which, as he noted, guided all of composition, not merely literary composition.[i] However, the Inductive Bible Study (IBS) Movement, as we know it today, traces its roots to the work of William Rainey Harper and his student Wilbert W. White, both seminary professors.[ii] White, who got his Ph.D. from Yale, built on the inductive Bible study methods he had learned from Harper while at Yale. In 1900, White founded the Biblical Seminary in New York, which became the Mecca for Inductive Bible Study. White was convinced that the key to understanding anything was to study its relationships. When he discovered the work of Ruskin, he incorporated his laws of composition into the inductive Bible study method. At the seminary he founded, White did the following[iii]:
- He incorporated Ruskin’s laws of composition into the inductive Bible study method. Since then, numerous other scholars within the IBS movement have unearthed new laws and added them to the list available today;
- Required his students to read Ruskin’s essay on composition.
- Promoted a Bible book-by-book study of the Bible in the student’s mother tongue (which he learned from Harper),
- Required students to read The Student, the Fish, and Agassiz, by Samuel H. Scudder, which described how the famous physician and biologist Louis Agassiz taught students the importance of direct observation in the sciences. He wanted his students to observe the Bible effectively.
- Made inductive Bible study central to the curriculum at the seminary.
The inductive method, as taught by Harper and White, also promoted the following[iv]:
- Constant interrogation of the text; unanswered questions were to be written classified “according as they relate to the text, interpretation of the text, geography, customs and manners, religious service, personal character, etc.”
- Prioritization of fact discovery before interpretation, development of principles, and application.
- Students were required to do their own thinking and only use commentaries judiciously.
Since the late 1800s and early 1900s, inductive Bible study has grown into many biblical seminaries and parachurch organizations. Asbury Theological Seminary is today’s Mecca for Inductive Bible study. Organizations like the IVP, YMCA, CRU, and many others have popularized inductive Bible study. Yet, at the core, much of the practice of Inductive Bible Study remains the same as Harper and White practiced.[v]
One of the most significant contributions to the work of Inductive Bible Study came with the 1952 publication of Robert Traina’s seminal book, the Methodical Bible Study. In it, Traina revised and increased the number of laws to eighteen. Since Traina’s work was published, many other practitioners like Irving T. Jensen, Oletta Wald, Howard, Kay Arthur, and numerous others have popularized inductive Bible Study and the use of major structural relationships (another name for the laws of composition). Major Structural relationships (MSRs) are now nearly universally employed by all serious Inductive Bible Study practitioners.[vi] In my view, the MSRs are potent tools for understanding not only the Bible but also any text and any composition in any field. You will have a lot of fun with them when you have mastered them and can see how they provide structure to all kinds of literature and the arts.
This book (Inductive Bible Study) is written by standing on the shoulders of the numerous giants who have contributed directly and indirectly to this movement. That allows you to stand on their shoulders and see further as well.
[i] John Ruskin, The Elements of Drawing (New York: Anboco, 2016), Kindle, Letter Three; The laws of composition are found under letter three. A copy of this book can be found free of charge on Gutenberg.org.
[ii] David R. Bauer, “Inductive Biblical Study: History, Character, and Prospects in a Global Environment,” The Asbury Journal 68, no. 1 (2013): 6-35, https://place.asburyseminary.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1182&context=asburyjournal.; This is not to say that the principles we now use as part of the Inductive Bible study weren’t around and used by others before them. Interpretation, observation, and interpretation have been used by people for thousands of years.
[iii] Asbury Theological Seminary, “Inductive Bible Study History,” Seedbed, last modified May 6, 2016, https://www.seedbed.com/inductive-Bible-study-history/.
[iv] Fredrick J. Long, “Major Structural Relationships: A Survey of Origins, Development, Classifications, and Assessment,” The Journal of Inductive Biblical Studies 1, no. 1 (January 2014): 22-58.
[v] Ibid.
[vi] Ibid; Fredrick J. Long nicely chronicles the development and use of Major Structural Relationships within the Inductive Bible Study movement.
