Living Hermeneutics in Motion : An Analysis and Evaluation of Paul Ricoeur's Contribution to Biblical Hermeneutics

by Laughery, Gregory J.

• ISBN13: 9780761823032
• ISBN10: 0761823034
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2002-06-01
• Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Pub Inc

Summary

Paul Ricoeur is one of the most prolific philosophers alive today. Many studies have been done on Ricoeur's philosophy, but very little on his theological trajectory and its connection to Biblical hermeneutics. Living Hermeneutics in Motion brings to light the diverse ways in which Ricoeur's hermeneutic revolutions concerning a meaningful text can be useful, specifically in the area of biblical interpretation. Situated within the modern- post modern interpretative tumult, this book is interested in ascertaining if Ricoeur's richly sedimented and hermeneutically complex orientation can offer an alternative to modernist "sharp boundaries" and postmodern "radical indeterminacy."

Table of Contents

Preface	v
Acknowledgments	vii
PART I Prefiguration
Introduction	3	(10)
Setting the Scene	3	(8)
The Aim of the Study	11	(2)
Life and Work	13	(14)
PART II Configuration
Text, Interpretation Theory Biblical Hermeneutics and Narrative	27	(104)
Why the ``Text''?	27	(16)
Explanation and Understanding	28	(5)
Discourse and the Dialectic of Event and Meaning	33	(3)
Sense and Reference	36	(1)
From Speaking to Writing	36	(3)
The Text	39	(4)
Consequences for Biblical Hermeneutics	43	(62)
Philosophical and Biblical Hermeneutics	43	(6)
Ricoeur-Bultmann: Reading the Biblical Text	49	(7)
Methodology: Its Concerns and Limits	56	(1)
Historical Criticism	56	(6)
Structuralism	62	(11)
Hermeneutical	73	(5)
Application to Biblical Parables	78	(1)
Parables: Crossan-Ricoeur	79	(9)
Methodology for Parable Interpretation: Complementarity in Tension	88	(1)
Reading Parables: A Historical-Critical View	88	(3)
An Evaluation of a Structural Rendering of Matthew 13: The Parable of the Sower	91	(4)
Parables: A Hermeneutic Trajectory	95	(10)
Narrative	105	(26)
Why Narrative?	105	(5)
Decoding: What is Narrative?	110	(4)
History and Fiction	114	(6)
A ``Re-decoding'' of Narrative	120	(6)
An Evaluation for Biblical Hermeneutics	126	(5)
PART III Refiguration
Trajectories Towards Closure	131	(18)
Authors, Readers and Texts	131	(10)
Refiguration and Beyond	141	(8)
Conclusion	149	(14)
Notes	163	(52)
Select Bibliography	215	(26)
Index	241