Hermeneutics!

 Take a word, any word; say 'sperm'. This can mean one thing or many as it is; a big thing or a little thing. The authorized definitions of words can be found in any dictionary. These definitions are the word's 'static' meaning, and provide a basic understanding of the various meanings a word can have. But, a word's *actual* meaning is specifically determined by use and context. Thus we can add another word, and get 'sperm whale'. Or we can place it within a sentence and get a completely different meaning: 'Here we have a bunch of little dancing Homer sperms'. Same word, different meaning, depending on its particular context. This is how modern biblical scholarship works. It places the various parts of scripture within the larger context of past times and peoples and cultures, and thus enhances its meaning and value. Hermeneutics, being the art and science of interpretation, places the Word in its various original contexts: the social-science approach brings out the social, cultural, personal, and economic aspects; the feminist approach focuses on women, power, and oppression in Church and Scripture (and even civilization as a whole); canonical criticism places the meaning of any text within the larger canonical format of the Bible as a unified whole, and within the larger Tradition that supports, nourishes and preserves it. And so it goes with the many other specific ways of "Reading Scripture". Different interests and areas of concern, combined with different methods of analysis produces different facts and results, just as different assumptions generally lead to different conclusions. This makes up the huge and confused world of modern biblical scholarship ... and only incidentally underlines the desperate need for a sound and solid hermeneutics as the foundation of *any* goodly religious or philosophical system. *

+
        The Interpreter-Fix Is In!
          [Or: On Deconstructing the Reader's Power]
.
/ Re: Bible Interpretation By Whose Influence? /
/ Newsgroup: alt.religion.christian.biblestudy /
/ Forum: TheologyOnLine - Bible Study / 19Nov2000 /

 "Yet let no one contend, and let none accuse, for with you is my
contention, O priest. You shall stumble by day, the prophet also
shall stumble with you by night; and I will destroy your mother.
My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge; because you have
rejected knowledge, I reject you from being a priest to me.
 And since you have forgotten the law of your God, I also will
forget your children. The more they increased, the more they
sinned against me; I will change their glory into shame. They
feed on the sin of my people; they are greedy for their iniquity."
                        -- Hosea 4:4-8/RSV .
> On 4Sept "skw" <sandyw@auracom.com> wrote:
>             Bible Interpretation By Whose Influence?
> ONE definition of the word "interpret" is "to conceive in the light
> of individual belief, judgment, or circumstance." (Webster's Ninth
> New Collegiate Dictionary) Thus, one's interpretation of anything is
> usually influenced by one's background, education, and upbringing.
> What, though, about Bible interpretation? Are we free to explain
> Bible passages according to our own "belief, judgment, or
> circumstance"?     <sadly snip remainder of topnotch posting>
.
 textman comments: Dear skw, I think that we can take it as a given
that most bible-scholars today will recognize that any interpretation
of scripture will *always* be "influenced by one's background,
education, and upbringing". This is a basic factum in all current
hermeneutics, and more or less justifies a disposition that includes
some measure of suspicion (ie. regarding the traditional and/or
authoritative and/or popular readings) and skepticism (eg. towards
all infallible and final "explanations"). This disposition has led
to many divergent styles and methods of reading the Word (of widely
varying quality, of course); but I think that, on the whole, all of
this has been a good and healthy thing for the biblical sciences,
for the post-modern reader, and even for the Word itself.
.
 Of course the battle is still only half fought, and so not even half
won. Many deplore the current diversity in hermeneutical methods;
likening it to great confusion and anarchy. And indeed they have a point
too. Most of the popular readings of scripture make for much flash and
noise and "emotional enrichment", but are seriously lacking for any
real substance and understanding. I think it safe to say, therefore,
that the vast majority of readings (in all their many forms and
designs) are far more concerned to make the texts conform to our
own personal, ecclesiastical, or theological ideas and intentions than
with any real care to listen to the Voice of our Lord (through the
always reliable channel of His written Word).
.
 . . .
.
 And yet it sounds such an easy thing really, doesn't it? Everybody
thinks themselves to be an expert at reading the scriptures you bet!
Just stick my nose into the Book and I'm communing with the divine,
just like that, and no way am *I* imposing anything upon scripture
oh no sir never that ... And of course this leads directly to the great
assurance that *this* vision and interpretation of *this* passage is
the best and most perfect and absolute reading of them all!
.
 But it really isn't that simple, as you well know, Louis. The plain
fact is that most readings (be they ever so comforting and/or
authoritative) are not final or absolute, or even very sensible,
because they all lack for the simple and vital necessity of paying
attention to the text. All theologies, methods, traditions, and
paradigms are laced and loaded with a huge mountain of vested
interests and guiding concerns that not only make objectivity a
ludicrous pipe-dream, but also make such a simple thing as paying
attention to the text all but entirely impossible.
.
  And the fundamental condition allowing all this hermeneutical chaos
to continue is a simple lack of respect for the text. Oh yes, people
love and adore and admire the Holy Bible. They praise its beauty and
wisdom, and declare it inspired and authoritative over the lives of all
the faithful. All that and more. But when it comes to the actual letters
and words of the text itself, THEN it is *always* a matter of the
Reader supreme and divine over the Text!
.
 ... Familiarity breeds contempt, I guess.
.
  It's true. Without respecting the autonomy and sheer strangeness
of this distant and ancient voice (that speaks through silent letters)
we are simply incapable of paying attention to the text to the point
where we can begin to hear it speak for itself; rather than allow it
to reflect our own assumptions and preconceptions back at us.
.
 And if we cannot even pay attention to the text, if we cannot even
hear the Word over own vulgar and discordant voices (posing as divine
wisdom and authority), how can we ever hope to arrive at any real or
viable (or even rational) understanding? ... That, in a nutshell, is
the dilemma that faces *all* bible-readers, bible-students, and bible-
scholars today, whether they can see it or not, whether they can admit
it or not, whether they can comprehend it or not ...
.
                  - the one whose favorite ho is Hosea - textman ;>
.
P.S.  "A great many people think they are thinking when they
      are merely rearranging their prejudices" -- William James
x

+
                   Man: The Interpreting Animal
.
/ Newsgroups >  alt.philosophy, alt.philosophy.kant / 12 January 2004 /
.
 The human animal's sense of reality stems, first and foremost,
from his essential intimacy with time, duration, and history.
Thus our perception of all things is barren and meaningless if
it is not fundamentally historical in its nature and operations.
Even the most empirical scientist must proceed from unproven
assumptions of causality, stability, and continuity (without
which concepts history would not be possible).
.
 I say that these concepts are unproven because we all routinely
take them for granted without ever bothering to stop and consider
the whys and wherefores, let alone the implications of our
absolute dependence upon them. Can you dispassionately observe
stability through a telescope? Can you put continuity under a
microscope, and examine all its parts? Can you place causality
in a test tube, and run a chemical analysis on it?
.
 But now you will object, and say that these ideas are proven
every day in the way that they function (ie. effectively) in
language and in daily life. Yet this does not constitute proof
as such (ie. in the strictest sense), it merely suggests that our
minds could not adequately cope with the world without them.
.
 Can we then say that these basic ideas, these Kantian categories
(if you will), are only something that the human mind adds onto
the world, beaming forth these ideas much like a flashlight
shining in the darkness? Or perhaps it works the other way
around. Perhaps these ideas function like a series of mental
filters, carefully sifting and sorting through the raw data of
sensory perceptions, and thereby allowing us to make some
sense of this ontologically chaotic, irrational, and overwhelming
universe? Do we project reason outward and into the world? Or
is this just the way that we pick up on the order and structure
of the Logos/Reason lurking deep within the world around us?
.
 Then again, perhaps it is not a simple question of either/or.
Perhaps the truth of things is much more complex than that.
Since human beings are a part of creation, a very dependant and
needy element within nature, maybe it would be more correct
to say that these strange ideas of causality, stability, and
continuity are a result of the ongoing interaction between
world-being and human-being.
.
 Our sense of reality, therefore, is neither forced upon us by a
cold and uncaring universe, nor generated exclusively from out
of the human mind (as if Mind were not a part of the world order,
but rather something alien and hostile to it). The truth is that
the developmental processes of natural and social life as a
whole itself produces the necessary ideas that provide us with
the order and meaning we require to be semi-rational creatures.
.
 We receive AND we interpret ... for *that* is the true
nature of 'being-there'!
.
      - the almost semi-interpretive one - cyybrwurm ;>
.
P.S. "The Christian religion, when divested of the rags in which
[the clergy] have enveloped it, and brought to the original
purity and simplicity of its Benevolent Institutor, is a
religion of all others most friendly to liberty, science, and
the freest expansion of the human mind." -- Thomas Jefferson
x

+
/ Topic >  Re: Man: The Interpreting Animal / 15Jan04 /
/ Newsgroups >  alt.philosophy, alt.philosophy.kant /
.
>> cybrwurm previously say: <snip> Then again, perhaps it is not
>> a simple question of either/or. Perhaps the truth of things
>> is much more complex than that. Since human beings are a part
>> of creation, a very dependant and needy element within nature,
>> maybe it would be more correct to say that these strange
>> ideas of causality, stability, and continuity are a result of
>> the ongoing interaction between world-being and human-being.
.
> On Jan12 HPO Jury = Malenoid objects: Except that "x-being"
> (whether world- or human-) should be as questionable, in
> your argument, as any other abstract concept.
.
 wurm: Negatory there, Malenoid. 'Being-there' is not so much an
abstract concept as it is a given condition of life in general.
The ideas spoken of above are all arrived at (as it were) by
way of inference and assumption, whereas 'Being' can only be
arrived at by way of the immediate awareness of experience, or
"intuition" (as Bergson would say). Only THEN can we subject
it to analysis and discursive reasoning. It's a significant
difference; the difference between 'having' and 'leaping'.
.
 You follow?
.
> "Sensations are merely an awareness of the present and
> cannot be retained beyond the immediate moment." -- Ayn Rand
.
 Well, duh! ... Are you perchance a Randy-Man?
.
> "Music is the only phenomenon that permits an adult to
> experience the process of dealing with pure sense data.
.
 *pure* sense data? As opposed to IMPURE sense-data maybe? Hey,
I know; just stick your hand in a fire, and THEN tell me you're
not dealing with PURE sense-data there! Sheesh, wut a dummy.
.
> Single musical tones are not percepts, but pure sensations;
> they become percepts only when integrated." -- Ayn Rand
.
 And when do these "percepts" actually become music?
.
>>> On Jan13 Mark Earnest asketh: Whom are you calling an animal?
.
 If the paw fits, wear it! 
.
         - the incredibly doggish one - cybrwurmm ;>
.
P.S. The biggest problem with rap-music is that those guys just
can't seem to find enough words that rhyme with 'muthaphukah'!
x

textman

*