Showing papers on "Exegesis published in 1979"

Interpreting the New Testament: A Practical Guide

Abstract: This introduction to New Testament exegesis helps readers by explaining in a simple and brief way the basic literary methods used in studying the New Testament today: textual criticism, translations, words and motifs, source criticism, form criticism, historical criticism, redaction criticism, and parallels. It is a beginner's book, designed to make explicit some of the procedures now used by the commentators who have had formal exegetical training.

Schleiermacher’s Hermeneutics and the Myth of the Given

Abstract: Friedrich Schleiermacher is the father of modern philosophical hermeneutics. His Copernican Revolution in hermeneutics shifted the focus from understanding texts to the process of understanding itself. Instead of providing general rules for biblical and philological exegesis, he asked a more fundamental question: How is understanding pos­ sible? By separating the applicatory function of interpretation from the act of understanding, Schleiermacher created the new, independent domain of theoretical inquiry into the necessary and sufficient conditions for the possibility of understanding. In this essay, I shall argue that Schleiermacher's valiant attempt to provide an acceptable hermeneutical theory to overcome the distance between speakers and listeners, readers and authors is unsuccessful owing to his acceptance of The Myth of the Given. The Myth of the Given is a philosophical doctrine held most notably by Cartesian and Kantian thinkers. Its rests upon a particular view of langauge and the relation of language to con­ sciousness and awareness. I will try to show that The Myth of the Given is untenable by sketching three contemporary attacks on it-those of Martin Heidegger, Jacques Derrida and Ludwig Wittgenstein. Lastly, I will suggest implications these attacks have for the fu­ ture of philosophy and theology. A. The Myth of the Given in Modern Philosophy

Commentaries on the first twenty chapters of the book of the Prophet Ezekiel . Commentaries on the book of the Prophet Daniel

Abstract: A classic commentary on the Old and New Testaments, complete and unabridged. Written in a clear, lucid style, it combines a profound reverence for the Bible with a rare objectivity in its exegesis.

Conflicts between Regnum and Sacerdotium as Reflected in a Canterbury Psalter of ca. 1215

Abstract: An English Psalter in Paris (Bibl. Nat., MS lat. 770) has never been seriously studied by art historians.1 Even the challenge of unidentified scenes has been neglected.2 Yet the extraordinary program of pictures contained in this book forms a unique historical document: the pictures present an allegory of the conflicts between regnum and sacerdotium, the Crown and the Church, in the period around 1200, and especially in the reign of King John. Political allegory was safely veiled by scriptural imagery and exegesis and hidden in a private liturgical book, but once deciphered the pictures appear as outspoken as the most extreme of contemporary treatises on kingship, and more powerful in their impact than the written word. The Psalter also deserves interest as a transitional production, made at a time when secular painters were beginning to provide illuminations for monastic books.

Commentaries on a harmony of the Evangelists, Matthew, Mark, and Luke . Commentary on the Gospel according to John

Abstract: A classic commentary on the Old and New Testaments, complete and unabridged. Written in a clear, lucid style, it combines a profound reverence for the Bible with a rare objectivity in its exegesis.

An Assessment and Prospectus for a Process Hermeneutic

Abstract: The preceding essays in this issue suggest a way around the impasse and perhaps near bankruptcy of dominant exegetical methods. Through a more inclusive method informed by process philosophy the authors take into account more of the subject matter of the biblical material. This style of exegesis gives rise to a process hermeneutical principle which recognizes the evolutionary nature of the significances attached to the text in its temporal unfolding. A central category of this hermeneutic is the "lures for feeling" which the text elicits in the reader's experience. The evolutionary nature of the text's unfolding significance calls for some normative hermeneutical assistance to avoid the dangers of relativism and a "permissive theology." Process thought suggests that these norms may be partially derived from the community of interpretation that has historically entertained the texts. That social view of exegesis helps a process hermeneutic regain some of the socio-political relevance which liberation theology demands but which the more individualistic existentialist hermeneutic has neglected. Barry A. Woodbridge (Ph.D., Claremont Graduate School) is presently minister of United University Church at the University of Southern California and Adjunct Professor of Theology at the School of Theology at Claremont. He is Abstract Editor of Process Studies and is author of Alfred North Whitehead: A Primary-Secondary Bibliography.