And third, both premises and inferences should be open-ended, that is, subject to change when warranted. Such induction emphasizes the primacy and priority of a direct, firsthand approach to the biblical text itself, with a view to allowing it to speak its own message and attempting to determine the meaning and intention of its implied writers. It should be recognized that such a lofty goal can never be fully realized. There is no such thing as perfect induction. There are no infallible exegetes.
Induction is a quest more than an achievement.
Wilhelm Dilthey was right in holding that all of us approach all texts with preunderstandings, and Rudolph Bultmann rightly held that there is no presuppositionless exegesis. But we need to attempt to become aware of our presuppositions and to subject them to the evidentiary test with a willingness to change them when warranted. A fourth conviction flows from an approach based on inductive, inferential reasoning. It is that interpretation should be an attempt to arrive at past-historical meanings and should precede evaluation. Much of what goes awry in biblical studies results from approaching the Scriptures initially with presuppositions that include value judgments.