Theological Hermeneutics

by Jensen, Alexander S.

• ISBN13: 9780334029014
• ISBN10: 0334029015
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2007-09-30
• Publisher: Presbyterian Pub Corp

Summary

The 'classics' are those books which in one way or another have made a lasting and determinative impact on the fields of theology and religious studies, and which have contributed to a variety of important conversations.SCM Classics emerge from the most extensive and influential backlist of any British theological publisher, and have been comprehensively redesigned and re-packaged. Each book offers a preface from a leading contemporary theologian or biblical scholar, who explains the continuing significance and relevance of the volume in question. Essential reading for scholars, students and general readers alike, and an ongoing staple for all good bookshops, SCM Classics have already made a major impact on the religious publishing landscape.It was Bernard of Clairvaux who said that when it comes to spirituality everyone must 'drink from their own well.' In this profound and moving book Gustavo Gutierrez outlines a spirituality born out of Latin America that, while rooted in the particularity of its own context, yet has great significance beyond it. The book fulfils the promise implicit in the author's earlier work -- often viewed as the 'Bible' of liberation theology -- A Theology of Liberation, which is also published as an SCM Classic. Gutierrez spoke there of the need and importance of developing a spirituality of liberation, recognising from the start that a theology which does not derive from an authentic encounter with God can never be fruitful. What is offered here is a spirituality that is in solidarity with the poor and that underlies a defiant hope that the world might actually be changeable for the better. Such spirituality is more than ever needed in a new centurybeleaguered at its outset by uncertainty, cynicism, and continuing social and economic injustice.

Author Biography

Alexander S. Jensen is now lecturer Systematic Theology at Murdoch University, Perth and at Perth Theological Hall of the Uniting Church in Australia.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements	p. xiii
Introduction	p. 1
What is hermeneutics?	p. 2
The hermeneutic circle	p. 4
The place of hermeneutics	p. 5
The approach of this book	p. 6
Hermeneutics in Antiquity	p. 9
Introduction	p. 9
Language and meaning	p. 10
Graeco-Roman antiquity	p. 11
Allegorical interpretation	p. 11
Historical grammatical interpretation	p. 13
Judaism	p. 13
A developing tradition	p. 14
Translations (Targumim)	p. 15
Typology	p. 15
Midrash	p. 16
Pesharim	p. 18
Allegorical interpretation	p. 19
Christianity	p. 23
New Testament	p. 23
The Apologists	p. 25
Origen	p. 27
The Antiochene School	p. 30
Conclusion	p. 31
Augustine of Hippo	p. 38
Introduction and biography	p. 38
Sources	p. 39
Words and signs	p. 40
Memory	p. 41
Using signs	p. 42
The inner word in the spoken word	p. 45
Conclusion	p. 48
The Middle Ages	p. 51
Jerome's translation	p. 51
Medieval interpretation	p. 52
Ways of speaking of God	p. 54
Equivocity	p. 54
Analogy	p. 58
Univocity	p. 60
Conclusion	p. 61
Humanism and the Reformation	p. 64
Humanism	p. 64
Ad fontes!	p. 64
Two literal senses of Scripture	p. 65
Erasmus	p. 66
Reformation	p. 67
Sola scriptura	p. 67
The key to the Scriptures	p. 70
Conclusion	p. 74
Rationalism and Enlightenment	p. 78
A new context	p. 78
Enlightenment	p. 79
Orthodoxy	p. 81
Scottish common-sense philosophy and modern fundamentalism	p. 82
Common sense	p. 82
Common sense, Bacon and fundamentalism	p. 84
Pietism	p. 86
Conclusion	p. 87
FriedrichSchleiermacher: Hermeneutics as the Art of Understanding	p. 90
Introduction and biography	p. 90
Sources	p. 91
Feeling and language	p. 91
The art of understanding	p. 93
Grammatical and psychological interpretation	p. 94
Grammatical interpretation	p. 94
Psychological interpretation	p. 96
Grammatical and psychological	p. 97
Historical criticism	p. 97
The hermeneutic circle	p. 98
Outlook: Perception, feeling and language	p. 99
Conclusion	p. 101
Historicism	p. 105
The text as source for the study of history: Dilthey and the history of religion school	p. 106
Wilhelm Dilthey: hermeneutics as the foundation of the human sciences	p. 106
History of religion school	p. 108
Hermeneutics of suspicion: Marx, Nietzsche and Freud	p. 109
Karl Marx	p. 109
Friedrich Nietzsche	p. 110
Sigmund Freud	p. 111
Existentialism I: Martin Heidegger and Rudolf Bultmann	p. 115
Introduction	p. 115
Bultmann and Heidegger: Sources	p. 117
Existentialism	p. 118
Heidegger	p. 118
Understanding	p. 118
State-of-mind	p. 120
Discourse and language	p. 121
Interpretation	p. 122
Bultmann	p. 124
Human existence	p. 125
The word of God	p. 127
Conclusion	p. 128
Existentialism II: The Path to Language	p. 135
Understanding through language	p. 135
Heidegger in his later career	p. 135
Gelaut der Stille (sound of silence) and Lauten des Wortes (sounding of the word)	p. 136
Unterschied (dif-ference)	p. 137
Ereignis (event/appropriation)	p. 137
Hans-Georg Gadamer	p. 139
The fusion of horizons	p. 141
An uncritical hermeneutic?	p. 143
Paul Ricoeur	p. 144
Sources and literature	p. 145
Critical method	p. 145
The surplus of meaning	p. 146
The conflict of interpretations	p. 148
Action and text	p. 148
Conclusion	p. 150
Hermeneutical theology	p. 151
The new hermeneutics	p. 151
Ernst Fuchs and the New Quest for the historical Jesus	p. 151
Gerhard Ebeling	p. 152
The Universality of the Sign I: Open Sign Systems	p. 161
Structuralism	p. 162
Ferdinand de Saussure: the founder of structuralism	p. 162
Claude Levi-Strauss: structuralist interpretation of myth	p. 163
Jacques Lacan: structuralist psychoanalysis	p. 165
Post-structuralism and deconstruction	p. 166
Post-structuralism	p. 166
Deconstruction	p. 170
Postmodern theology	p. 171
The Universality of the Sign II: Closed Sign Systems	p. 179
Karl Barth	p. 179
Hermeneutics and theology: speaking of God	p. 179
Analogy of faith	p. 181
Biblical hermeneutics	p. 182
Canonical approaches and new biblical theology	p. 183
Brevard Childs	p. 183
Literary criticism	p. 186
Background	p. 186
Principles	p. 187
Critical Theory, Feminism and Postcolonialism	p. 192
Critical Theory	p. 192
The Frankfurt School	p. 192
Jurgen Habermas	p. 193
The debate with Gadamer	p. 194
Critical remarks	p. 196
Feminism	p. 198
Feminist interpretation	p. 199
The construction of gender	p. 200
The atomization of feminism	p. 201
Postcolonialism	p. 201
Towards a Hermeneutical Theology	p. 207
Preliminary considerations	p. 207
Overcoming naive realism	p. 207
Theological foundations	p. 208
A hermeneutical theology	p. 212
A linguistically constituted experience	p. 212
Critical interpretation of texts	p. 214
Speaking within the theologian's context	p. 216
The nature of theological language	p. 217
Dogmatic language	p. 218
Narrative, praise and promise	p. 219
Conclusion	p. 221
Conclusion	p. 224
The inner word	p. 224
The significance of hermeneutics	p. 227
Index of Subjects	p. 229
Index of Names	p. 236
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