New Horizons in Hermeneutics : The Theory and Practice of Transforming Biblical Reading

by Anthony C. Thiselton

• ISBN13: 9780310217626
• ISBN10: 0310217628
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1997-02-01
• Publisher: Zondervan

Summary

Dr. Anthony Thiselton's thorough approach to the growing discipline of hermeneutics takes account of a comprehensive range of theoretical models of reading and interpretation. He evaluates both the foundations on which they rest and their practical implications for Old and New Testament reading. Building on his earlier influential work, The Two Horizons, Dr. Thiselton examines theories of texts, semiotics and literature, the legacy of Patristic and Reformation hermeneutics, and the use of socio-critical theory, liberation theology, and Marxist, feminist, and black hermeneutics, and discusses every major hermeneutical theorist. This exhaustive and rigorous critique will prove valuable to anyone undertaking advanced research in hermeneutics, including teachers and students of theology and language or literary theory.

Table of Contents

Preface and Acknowledgements	xi
INTRODUCTION: NEW HORIZONS	1	(30)
1 Aims and Concerns	1	(3)
2 Hermeneutics in the University, and the Bible and the Church	4	(4)
3 New Horizons for Readers: Reading with Transforming Effects	8	(2)
4 New Horizons in the Development of Hermeneutics	10	(6)
5 The New Horizons of Fresh Argument and Transforming the Reading-Paradigm	16	(9)
Notes to Introduction [n. I-3I]	25	(6)
I TRANSFORMING TEXTS: PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS	31	(24)
1 The Capacity of Texts to Transform Readers	31	(4)
2 The Capacity of Readers and Texts to Transform Texts: Different Notions of Intertextuality	35	(7)
3 Situational and Horizonal Factors in Transforming Texts	42	(5)
4 Factors Arising from Semiotics, Theories of Hermeneutics, and Theories of Textuality	47	(5)
Notes to Chapter I	52	(3)
II WHAT IS A TEXT? SHIFTING PARADIGMS OF TEXTUALITY	55	(25)
1 Are Authors Part of Texts? Introductory Issues	55	(3)
2 Are Situations or Readers Part of Texts?	58	(5)
3 Theological Claims about the Givenness and Actualization of Biblical Texts	63	(5)
4 Further Theological Issues: Disembodied Texts or Communicative Address?	68	(7)
Notes to Chapter II	75	(5)
III FROM SEMIOTICS TO DECONSTRUCTION AND POST-MODERNIST THEORIES OF TEXTUALITY	80	(62)
1 Code in Semiotic Theory: The Nature of Semiotic Theory	80	(4)
2 Need Semiotics Lead to Deconstructionism? Different Understandings of the Implications of Semiotic Theory	84	(8)
3 Roland Barthes: From Hermeneutics through Semiotics to Intralinguistic World, and to Text as Play	92	(2)
4 Difficulties and Questions: the Inter-Mixture of Semiotics and World-View	94	(9)
5 Jacques Derrida: an Endless Series of Signs under Erasure	103	(11)
6 Postmodernist and Deconstructionist Approaches in Biblical Interpretation	114	(11)
7 Further Philosophical Evaluations and Critiques of Deconstructionism, Some in Dialogue with Wittgenstein	125	(7)
Notes to Chapter III	132	(10)
IV PRE-MODERN BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION: THE HERMENEUTICS OF TRADITION	142	(37)
1 Relations between Pre-Modern, Modern and Post-Modern Perspectives: some Parallels and Contrasts	142	(6)
2 Tradition as Context of Understanding: the Two Testaments, Gnosticism and the Relevance of Irenaeus	148	(9)
3 Varied Issues in Allegorical Interpretation: its Demythologizing Function in Pre-Christian and Philonic Interpretation	157	(6)
4 The Beginnings of Christian Allegorical Interpretation	163	(4)
5 Allegory or Application? The Development of Pastoral Hermeneutical Consciousness in Origen and a Contrast with Chrysostom	167	(6)
Notes to Chapter IV	173	(6)
V THE HERMENEUTICS OF ENQUIRY: FROM THE REFORMATION TO MODERN THEORY	179	(25)
1 The Three Polemical Contexts which Give `Claritas Scripturae' its Currency: Epistemology, `Higher' Meanings, and Efficacy	179	(7)
2 Questioning in the Service of Faith: Christ and Reflective Criteria in Luther	186	(4)
3 Further Reflection on Interpretation in Calvin and in English Reformers	190	(4)
4 The Rise and Development of Modern Hermeneutical Theory	194	(4)
Notes to Chapter V	198	(6)
VI SCHLEIERMACHER'S HERMENEUTICS OF UNDERSTANDING	204	(33)
1 Schleiermacher's Most Distinctive Contribution to the Subject	204	(5)
2 The Broader Context: Romanticism, Pietism, Culture, and Hermeneutics	209	(7)
3 Schleiermacher's System of Hermeneutics: `Grammatical' (Shared Language) and `Psychological' (Language-Use) Axes	216	(5)
4 Schleiermacher's System of Hermeneutics: the Hermeneutical Circle and a `Better' Understanding than the Author	221	(7)
5 Theological Ambiguities and Hermeneutical Achievements	228	(5)
Notes to Chapter VI	233	(4)
VII PAULINE AND OTHER TEXTS IN THE LIGHT OF A HERMENEUTICS OF UNDERSTANDING	237	(35)
1 Paul, Pauline Texts, and Schleiermacher's Hermeneutical Circle	237	(5)
2 The Hermeneutical Circle and the Quest for a `Centre' of Pauline Thought	242	(5)
3 A Hermeneutics of `Life-World' Reconstruction in Dilthey and Betti: `Re-living' and `Openness'	247	(6)
4 Pauline Texts and Reconstruction: A `Better' Understanding than the Author?	253	(8)
5 Understanding the Author of an Anonymous Text: the Epistle to the Hebrews	261	(6)
Notes to Chapter VII	267	(5)
VIII THE HERMENEUTICS OF SELF-INVOLVEMENT: FROM EXISTENTIALIST MODELS TO SPEECH-ACT THEORY	272	(41)
1 Reader-Involvement, Address, and States of Affairs: The Contrasting Assumptions of Existentialist Hermeneutics and `the Logic of Self-Involvement' in Austin and Evans	272	(7)
2 The Hermeneutics of the Earlier Heidegger and Bultmann's Approach to Paul	279	(4)
3 Christological Texts in Paul and in the Synoptic Gospels in the Light of Speech-Act Theory in Austin, Evans, Searle, and du Plessis	283	(8)
4 Illocutionary Acts in J.R. Searle and F. Recanati: Directions of Fit between Words and the World	291	(7)
5 The `World-to-Word Fit' of a Hermeneutic of Promise: Types of Illocutions; the Work of Christ in Paul; Promise in the Old Testament	298	(9)
Notes to Chapter VIII	307	(6)
IX THE HERMENEUTICS OF METACRITICISM AND THE FOUNDATIONS OF KNOWLEDGE	313	(31)
1 The Context of the Paradigm-shift to Radical Metacritical Hermeneutics and the Nature of Gadamer's Hermeneutics	313	(9)
2 Gadamer's Claim for `the Universality of the Hermeneutical Problem' and the Development of Critiques of Language and of Knowledge	322	(9)
3 Pannenberg's Metacritical Unifying of a Hermeneutics of Universal History with the Scientific Status of Theology	331	(7)
Notes to Chapter IX	338	(6)
X THE HERMENEUTICS OF SUSPICION AND RETRIEVAL: PAUL RICOEUR'S HERMENEUTICAL THEORY	344	(35)
1 Human Fallibility, Hermeneutical Suspicion, and Freudian Psychoanalysis: Idols, Dreams, and Symbols	344	(7)
2 Paul Ricoeur on Metaphor and Narrative: Possibility, Time, and Transformation	351	(7)
3 Metacriticism, Fiction, History, and Truth: Some Assessments Largely in the Light of Speech-Act Theory	358	(10)
4 Some Consequences for Ricoeur's Approach to Biblical Hermeneutics	368	(5)
Notes to Chapter X	373	(6)
XI THE HERMENEUTICS OF SOCIO-CRITICAL THEORY: ITS RELATION TO SOCIO-PRAGMATIC HERMENEUTICS AND TO LIBERATION THEOLOGIES	379	(32)
1 The Nature of Socio-Critical Hermeneutics: Habermas on Hermeneutics, Knowledge, Interest, and an Emancipatory Critique	379	(6)
2 Habermas's Theory of Communicative Action in the Double Context of Social Theory in Marx, Weber and Parsons, and Speech-Act Theory: Habermas and Biblical Interpretation	385	(8)
3 Richard Rorty's Socio-Pragmatic Contextualism vs. Karl-Otto Apel's Cognitive Anthropology as Transcendental Metacritique	393	(12)
Notes to Chapter XI	405	(6)
XII THE HERMENEUTICS OF LIBERATION THEOLOGIES AND FEMINIST THEOLOGIES: SOCIO-CRITICAL AND SOCIO-PRAGMATIC STRANDS	411	(60)
1 The Major Concerns, Development, and Dual Character of Latin American Liberation Hermeneutics	411	(8)
2 Parallels and Contrasts with Black Hermeneutics: the Varied Approaches of Cone, Boesak, Goba, Mosala, and other Writers	419	(8)
3 Further Examples of Marxist or `Materialist' Readings: Belo and Clevenot	427	(3)
4 The Nature and Development of Feminist Biblical Hermeneutics	430	(9)
5 The Use of Socio-Critical and Socio-Pragmatic Methods and Epistemologies in Feminist Hermeneutics: Ruether, Fiorenza, Tolbert, and other Writers	439	(13)
6 Further Complexities in Feminist Hermeneutics: Parallels between Demythologizing and Depatriarchalizing	452	(11)
Notes to Chapter XII	463	(8)
XIII THE HERMENEUTICS OF READING IN THE CONTEXT OF LITERARY THEORY	471	(45)
1 Problematic and Productive Aspects of the Literary Approach and the Legacy of the New Criticism	471	(8)
2 A Closer Examination of Narrative Theory	479	(7)
3 Formalist and Structuralist Approaches to Biblical Narrative Texts	486	(9)
4 From Post-Structuralism to Semiotic Theories of Reading: Intertextuality and the Paradigm-Shift to `Reading'	495	(4)
5 The Paradigm of `Reading' in Biblical Studies and Intertextuality in Biblical Interpretation	499	(9)
Notes to Chapter XIII	508	(8)
XIV THE HERMENEUTICS OF READING IN READER-RESPONSE THEORIES OF LITERARY MEANING	516	(42)
1 Wolfgang Iser's Theory of Reader-Interaction and its Utilization in Biblical Studies	516	(8)
2 Umberto Eco's Semiotic and Text-Related Reader-Response Theories and their Implications for Biblical Texts	524	(5)
3 Differences among More Radical Reader-Response Theories: The Psychoanalytical Approach of Holland and the Socio-Political Approach of Bleich	529	(5)
4 Further Observations on the Reader-Orientated Semiotics of Culler and on the Social Pragmatism of Fish	534	(6)
5 What Fish's Counterarguments Overlook about Language: Fish and Wittgenstein	540	(6)
6 The Major Difficulties and Limited Value of Fish's Later Theory for Biblical Studies and for Theology	546	(4)
Notes to Chapter XIV	550	(8)
XV THE HERMENEUTICS OF PASTORAL THEOLOGY: (I) TEN WAYS OF READING TEXTS IN RELATION TO VARIED READING-SITUATIONS	558	(39)
1 Life-Worlds, Intentional Directedness, and Enquiring Reading in Reconstructionist Models	558	(5)
2 Disruptions of Passive Reading in Existentialist Models	563	(3)
3 Drawing Readers into Biblical Narrative-Worlds: Four Theories of Narrative in Relation to Reading-Situations	566	(9)
4 Biblical Symbols: Productive and Spiritual Reading, with Questions partly from Freud and Jung for Pastoral Theology	575	(7)
5 Models Five through on Eight on Variable Reader-Effects: Semiotic Productivity, Reader-Response, Socio-Pragmatic Contextualization, and Deconstruction	582	(10)
Notes to Chapter XV	592	(5)
XVI THE HERMENEUTICS OF PASTORAL THEOLOGY: (2) FURTHER READING-SITUATIONS, PLURALISM, AND `BELIEVING' READING	597	(24)
1 Some Implications of Speech-Act Models for Enquiring and Believing Reading (Ninth Model); and the Socio-Critical Quest to Transcend Instrumental Uses of Texts (Tenth Model)	597	(7)
2 `The Present Situation' in Hermeneutical Approaches to Pastoral Theology and to Social Science: Criteria of Relevance in Alfred Schutz and the Critique of the Cross	604	(7)
3 The Transformation of Criteria of Relevance and Power in the New Horizons of the Cross and Resurrection: Towards a New Understanding of Hermeneutical Pluralism	611	(8)
Notes to Chapter XVI	619	(2)
Bibliography	621	(41)
Index of authors	662	(11)
Index of subjects (including index to definition of terms)	673	(22)
Index of biblical references	695	(7)
Index of ancient extra-biblical sources	702