scholarly journals Reading the Bible in the 21st century: Some hermeneutical principles: Part 2

2015 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Dirk Van der Merwe

This essay is to be an extension of the essay �Reading the Bible in the 21st century: Some hermeneutical principles: Part 1�. Two more �hermeneutical aspects� are proposed and discussed in this essay: the aspects of spirituality and embodiment. These two aspects are presented in this essay to supplement and compliment the hermeneutical process. A few remarks on the idiosyncrasy of texts pave the way for the legitimate exploitation of spiritualities (lived experiences) embedded in biblical texts which should be regarded as an addition to �biblical hermeneutics� and which have to serve as a catalyst for the embodiment of the �reading texts�.

2015 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Dirk Van der Merwe

Many books and articles have been published over several decades on �biblical hermeneutics� to capture the epistemology of biblical hermeneutics and the phenomenology of interpretation, communication and language in order to direct the Bible reader how to read the ancient texts, assembled in the Bible, sensibly. The first part of this essay looks briefly into the history of biblical hermeneutics of the past century in order to generate an orientation of how �biblical hermeneutics� was regarded and applied as well as to constitute an environment for the investigation to follow in the rest of this essay and in a succeeding essay. In the second part of this essay, a few hermeneutical approaches are analysed in order to recommend a way forward for the dynamic analysis and interpretation (ἑρμηνεία) of biblical texts. This prepares the stage for the recommendation of two extra textures or aspects to be incorporated in the hermeneutical process, to be investigated in a succeeding essay.Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: This article briefly orientates the reader about the paradigm shifts concerning biblical hermeneutics over the previous half century. It challenges the holistic approach to incorporate spirituality and the embodiment of biblical texts in the hermeneutical process. Disciplines involved are hermeneutics and methodology, theology and spirituality.


Author(s):  
Jetze Touber

Chapter 1 homes in on Spinoza as a Bible critic. Based on existing historiography, it parses the main relevant historical contexts in which Spinoza came to articulate his analysis of the Bible: the Sephardi community of Amsterdam, freethinking philosophers, and the Reformed Church. It concludes with a detailed examination of the Tractatus theologico-politicus, Spinoza’s major work of biblical criticism. Along the way I highlight themes for which Spinoza appealed to the biblical texts themselves: the textual unity of the Bible, and the biblical concepts of prophecy, divine election, and religious laws. The focus is on the biblical arguments for these propositions, and the philological choices that Spinoza made that enabled him to appeal to those specific biblical texts. This first chapter lays the foundation for the remainder of the book, which examines issues of biblical philology and interpretation discussed among the Dutch Reformed contemporaries of Spinoza.


Theology ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 112 (867) ◽  
pp. 199-207
Author(s):  
Ernst M. Conradie

This essay explores the role of interpretative strategies in biblical interpretation. It is argued that ‘doctrinal constructs’ play a crucial role in appropriating the significance of biblical texts in and for a particular contemporary context. Various such constructs typically employed for an ecological biblical hermeneutics are analysed. Suggestions are offered towards the use of more sophisticated constructs, with reference to the notions of the ‘liberation of creation’, the ‘wisdom of God’ and the ‘whole household of God’.


2003 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 438-448
Author(s):  
Hugh Pyper

AbstractHélène Cixous' engagement with biblical texts is a significant but neglected aspect of her work. In this essay, the biblical allusions in several of her works are traced, particularly centring around the theme of the dog and the bite or wound. The Bible represents for Cixous both an example of the unbounded writing she sees as feminine, and a text that is confined by masculine authority and taboo. These two aspects come together in her engagement with the writings of Clarice Lispector whose grammatically paradoxical phrase in Portuguese eles a biblia—'those he-bible', as translations inadequately represent it—embodies that tension. The tension between these styles of writing in the Bible opens up as a wound in the text which allows a penetration below the surface. The power of the Bible is in the way that this opening lets the reader see 'the meat we are' in an encounter with the 'root' of being.


Scriptura ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 120 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-13
Author(s):  
Louis Jonker

Intercultural biblical hermeneutics is a fairly recent development in biblical scholarship in general. It emphasises that biblical interpretation almost always takes place in contexts where an array of cultural values and beliefs determine the outcome of the interpretative process. Although this branch of biblical hermeneutics emerged from the need to reflect theoretically on how Christians from different socio-cultural and socio-economic contexts engage the biblical texts, and one another on account of those texts, this approach may also be widened to include the interpretation of the Bible in non-Christian contexts (including the contexts of other religions and secular contexts) or even to engage in discourse on the interpretation of authoritative texts of different traditions (such as the Qur’an in Islam, in addition to the Tenakh of Judaism, and the Old and New Testament of Christianity). In research on intercultural biblical hermeneutics, it has been noticed that intercultural interpretation holds enormous transformative potential. My paper will examine how this could be of use in engagements between religious, secular and post-secular contexts.


2021 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 117
Author(s):  
Gregorius Tri Wardoyo

<p><em>Violent texts in the bible</em><em> both in the Old Testament or in the New Testament</em><em>, especially in the Old Testament, arise a problem</em><em> for a potential reader</em><em> on how to read </em><em>and understand their message and the theology of the author of the Book.</em><em> </em><em>For this reason, b</em><em>iblical scholars try to read it and they propose the way to read such texts</em><em>, such as to read them in the historical context of the Book itself, and interpret them as a reflection of the author and their experience</em><em>. This article tries to propose another way to read violent texts, in particularly that involve God as author of violent deeds. The methode of this discussion is exegetical analysis on the texts of the Old Testament</em><em>, especially on those which narrate the violent deeds of God </em><em>. The result of the study is the violent deeds of God aim to recreate the creation; that is why such violent texts might be read in the frame of the new creation.</em></p><p><strong><em>Key words</em></strong><em>: </em>Alkitab, Keluaran, Kekerasan, Allah, Penciptaan (Baru)</p>


2021 ◽  
pp. 095394682110313
Author(s):  
Michael Mawson

Writing in the 1920s and 1930s, Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Franz Rosenzweig each provided rich reflections on how we are to understand and approach the Bible as God’s word. They each understood Scripture as revelation, while attending closely to the substance and forms of biblical texts. This article therefore explores how their approaches to Scripture can contribute to ongoing work in apocalyptic theology. In particular, it draws out the ethic of responsibility that is inherent in their biblical hermeneutics.


2020 ◽  
Vol 76 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Gerald O. West

This article aims to point out two seminal reflections on interlocution: Frostin’s insightful late-1980s (1988) analysis of ‘Third World’ liberation theologies and his contention that the decisive question for liberation theologies was the question of who the primary dialogue partners of liberation theology have been and should be, and Vuyani Vellem’s more recent millennial (2012) reflection on how South African Black Theology after liberation has grappled and should grapple with the notion of interlocution. My choice of these two scholars is not idiosyncratic, for Vellem uses Frostin’s work as one of his starting points. I build on this conversation, reflecting with Vellem on how we might understand the issue of interlocution within black and kindred liberation and prophetic theologies today. My particular emphasis is on biblical hermeneutics; therefore, my contribution to the conversation frames my reflections within a particular phase of Black Theology in which the Bible is most significantly problematised, what Tinyiko Maluleke refers to as the second phase of Black Theology. The conundrum Itumeleng Mosala poses for Black Theology is how the recognition of the Bible as itself – intrinsically, inherently and indelibly – ‘a site of struggle’ reconfigures interlocution. Mosala, I will argue, forces us to not only ask who we interpret with when we do Black Theology, but also ask which biblical texts we read, for not all biblical texts offer resources for liberation.Contribution: This article makes a contribution to the VukaniBantuTsohangBatho – Spirituality of Black Liberation collection in which the work of Vuyani Vellem is celebrated and critically engaged. Specifically, the article interrogates and contributes to Vuyani’s Vellem understanding of ‘locution’, and asks how this concept impacts our understanding of biblical text.


2020 ◽  
Vol 63 (2) ◽  
pp. 128-137
Author(s):  
E. Talstra

Is Biblical Hermeneutics still a meaningful discipline? Modern studies in hermeneutics either try to teach us how we can still speak about God in modern society, or that we should accept our limited abilities to speak about God at all. This article claims that these options separate God from the long history of biblical texts and contexts where He, as ‘I,’ addresses Israel as ‘you’. In his recent book on reading the Bible, Arnold Huijgen concentrates on the soul rather than on the ratio as an instrument for reading the Bible. Though agreeing with Huijgen’s criticism of modern rationalistic hermeneutics, this article does not see why the soul should take over the role of biblical scholarship when reading the Bible.


2016 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ney Brasil Pereira

Resumo: O que se entende por “fundamentação bíblica” de um documento eclesiástico,no caso, da Exortação Apostólica “sobre a alegria do amor na família”?Obviamente, é a verificação da maneira como o autor do texto recorreu à Bíbliapara justificar suas afirmações. Em outras palavras, qual a hermenêutica dascitações bíblicas apresentadas pelo papa Francisco? Nesse sentido, meu trabalhonão se reduzirá à mera identificação dos textos bíblicos em cada um dos novecapítulos. Além de identificá-los, procurarei contextualizá-los e, quando for o caso,avaliá-los do ponto de vista da exegese, contribuindo assim, espero, para umamelhor apreciação do documento. O desenvolvimento do trabalho percorrerásimplesmente a sequência dos nove capítulos, em cada um deles examinandoas citações bíblicas explícitas, sem esquecer de aludir às citações implícitas.Palavras-chave: Argumentação bíblica. Hermenêutica. Matrimônio. Família.Abstract: What does one mean by “biblical foundation” of an ecclesiasticaldocument, namely, of the Apostolic Exhortation “about joy of love in the family”?Obviously, it is the examination of the way how the author of the text resortedto the Bible in order to justify his assertions. In other words, which was the hermeneuticsof the biblical quotations presented by pope Francis? In this way, thepaper won’t be reduced to the mere identification of the biblical texts in each oneof the nine chapters. Besides identifying them, the author will try to show theircontext and, when necessary, will evaluate them from an exegetical point of view,so contributing to a better appreciation of the document. The paper will simply gothrough the sequence of the chapters, in each one examining the explicit biblicalquotations, without forgetting to allude to the implicit quotations.Key-words: Biblical argumentation. Hermeneutics. Marriage. Family.


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