March 19, 2005
Rhetorical Concepts IV: Hermeneutics
I. Meaning of "hermeneutics":
A. Greek word "hermeneia"=
1. Interpretation by "speech" itself, since language interprets what is in a person's mind.
2. Translation from an unintelligible language into an intelligible one (e.g. the hermeneia of tongues in I Cor. 12:10)
3. Interpretation by commentary and explanation.
4. Note the connection with the god Hermes.
B. Issues:
1. Does "original intent" matter? Or the "significance" to readers in future contexts? How creative may the interpreter be?
2. What about texts with alleged divine AND human authorship? Is there a deeper principle for framing interpretation, e.g. Luther's distinction between identifying the "law" and the "gospel" in every biblical text?
3. Does every act of human communication involve, to a greater or lesser degree, the "hermeneutic" problem?
4. The hermeneutic circle? (Schleiermacher, 19th c. German theologian, taught that in order to interpret part of a text one must understand the whole text, and vice versa.)
C. Current debates:
1. E.D. Hirsch: "meaning" and "significance" must be distinguished in textual interpretation; Hirsch famously said "I do not wish to be part of an enterprise in which it is impossible to be wrong," and so one can, as part of literary study, reconstruct through historical evidence the author's "meaning" as "intention."
2. H-G. Gadamer: interpretation is a "fusion of horizons" between text and interpreter--the reader "goes native" in the text.
3. Derrida: texts are profoundly unstable entities in which the authorial intention is often subverted by choice of figures or examples.
4. In US constitutional law, there is an ongoing struggle between those who rely on original intent, text (plain meaning), and institutional structure to construe the constitutional text, and those who treat the constitution as an "evolving" entity, more like the common law itself--adapting to new circumstances through creative application by judges. On these issues, see especially Philip Bobbitt, Constitutional Fate.
II. The Jewish tradition:
A. Distinction between guide to action (halakhah, the "way" or "path"), which is seldom revisable or adaptable to new circumstances; and the actual biblical narratives, which were interpreted very freely: midrash (creative interpretation, for preaching purposes).
B. Example: Numbers 25: 6-13. The men are busy whoring with the Moabite women. and the women entice the Israelites to worship Baal-peor, their false god. ."One of the Israelites came and brought a Midianite woman over to his companions, in the sight of Moses and of the whole Israelite community who were weeping at the entrance of the tent of meeting. When Pinchas [the name means "Nubian," or "Negro," interestingly enough], son of Eleazar son of Aaron the priest, saw this, he left the assembly and, taking a spear in hand, he followed the Israelite into the chamber and stabbed both of them, the Israelite and the woman, through the belly. Then the plague against the Israelites was checked. . . . Hashem spoke to Moses saying, 'Pinchas, the son of Eleazar son of Aaron the priest, has turned back my wrath from the Israelites by displaying among them his passion for me, so that I did not wipe out the Israelite people in my passion. Say, therefore, 'I grant him my pact of friendship. It shall be for him and his descendants after him a pact of priesthood for all time, because he took impassioned action for Hashem, thus making expiation for the Israelites." One rabbinic commentator, troubled by the brutality of the passage, claims that Pinchas knew that this man and woman were "beshert," that is, soul mates for all eternity, and killed them immediately that they might be together forever.
1. E.D. Hirsch: "meaning" and "significance" must be distinguished in textual interpretation; Hirsch famously said "I do not wish to be part of an enterprise in which it is impossible to be wrong," and so one can, as part of literary study, reconstruct through historical evidence the author's "meaning" as "intention."
2. H-G. Gadamer: interpretation is a "fusion of horizons" between text and interpreter--the reader "goes native" in the text.
3. Derrida: texts are profoundly unstable entities in which the authorial intention is often subverted by choice of figures or examples.
4. In US constitutional law, there is an ongoing struggle between those who rely on original intent, text (plain meaning), and institutional structure to construe the constitutional text, and those who treat the constitution as an "evolving" entity, more like the common law itself--adapting to new circumstances through creative application by judges. On these issues, see especially Philip Bobbitt, Constitutional Fate.
II. The Jewish tradition:
A. Distinction between guide to action (halakhah, the "way" or "path"), which is seldom revisable or adaptable to new circumstances; and the actual biblical narratives, which were interpreted very freely: midrash (creative interpretation, for preaching purposes).
B. Example: Numbers 25: 6-13. The men are busy whoring with the Moabite women. and the women entice the Israelites to worship Baal-peor, their false god. ."One of the Israelites came and brought a Midianite woman over to his companions, in the sight of Moses and of the whole Israelite community who were weeping at the entrance of the tent of meeting. When Pinchas [the name means "Nubian," or "Negro," interestingly enough], son of Eleazar son of Aaron the priest, saw this, he left the assembly and, taking a spear in hand, he followed the Israelite into the chamber and stabbed both of them, the Israelite and the woman, through the belly. Then the plague against the Israelites was checked. . . . Hashem spoke to Moses saying, 'Pinchas, the son of Eleazar son of Aaron the priest, has turned back my wrath from the Israelites by displaying among them his passion for me, so that I did not wipe out the Israelite people in my passion. Say, therefore, 'I grant him my pact of friendship. It shall be for him and his descendants after him a pact of priesthood for all time, because he took impassioned action for Hashem, thus making expiation for the Israelites." One rabbinic commentator, troubled by the brutality of the passage, claims that Pinchas knew that this man and woman were "beshert," that is, soul mates for all eternity, and killed them immediately that they might be together forever.
III. Medieval Christian tradition:
A. Familiar couplet:
Littera gesta docet; quit credas allegoria;
moralis quid agas; quo tendas anagogia
B. Four senses; useful as a way of generating sermon ideas
1. Literal: Moses leading the people Israel through the Sea of Reeds
2. Allegorical: "Prophecies" the Christian notion of "baptism"
3. Moral: How has the congregation personally been led out of danger into salvation?
4. Anagogical or eschatological: This passage prefigures our live in Heaven, the "Promised Land." [In his Rhetoric of Motives, Kenneth Burke discusses the notion of "socio-anagogic" interpretation, in which a literary work is seen to symbolize the resolution of class conflicts.]
A. Familiar couplet:
Littera gesta docet; quit credas allegoria;
moralis quid agas; quo tendas anagogia
B. Four senses; useful as a way of generating sermon ideas
1. Literal: Moses leading the people Israel through the Sea of Reeds
2. Allegorical: "Prophecies" the Christian notion of "baptism"
3. Moral: How has the congregation personally been led out of danger into salvation?
4. Anagogical or eschatological: This passage prefigures our live in Heaven, the "Promised Land." [In his Rhetoric of Motives, Kenneth Burke discusses the notion of "socio-anagogic" interpretation, in which a literary work is seen to symbolize the resolution of class conflicts.]
IV. The Protestant Reformers:
A. Attacked excessive allegorical interpretation (although believed that events in the Hebrew Bible did prefigure the "New" Testament). (Anglicans were less troubled by allegorical interpretation, and elaborate speculations about the biblical text.)
B. Emphasized the "literal" and "moral" sense.
C. Puritans' attitude toward the literal and emphasis on the "plain style" affected their preaching and, later, the attitude of many early Americans toward the notion of a written constitution, which they wanted free from the interpretive chicanery of lawyers (who were viewed much like the overly ingenious Catholic and Anglican preachers).
D. We are thus, as Sanford Levinson points out in Constitutional Faith, fighting out a battle between "Catholic" and "Protestant" interpretation.
A. Attacked excessive allegorical interpretation (although believed that events in the Hebrew Bible did prefigure the "New" Testament). (Anglicans were less troubled by allegorical interpretation, and elaborate speculations about the biblical text.)
B. Emphasized the "literal" and "moral" sense.
C. Puritans' attitude toward the literal and emphasis on the "plain style" affected their preaching and, later, the attitude of many early Americans toward the notion of a written constitution, which they wanted free from the interpretive chicanery of lawyers (who were viewed much like the overly ingenious Catholic and Anglican preachers).
D. We are thus, as Sanford Levinson points out in Constitutional Faith, fighting out a battle between "Catholic" and "Protestant" interpretation.
Posted by jim at March 19, 2005 05:28 PM
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