What is Antiochian Hermeneutics?

Hermeneutics

INTRODUCTION

The topic of hermeneutics comes up very often in discussions of the the Irenics type. Example of this would be a Catholic or Orthodox believer wondering why protestants have so many denominations why they are so faction. I simply quick answer to this is that different people decide to follow different methods of hermeneutics. If two people use a different process in study those two people will follow different trails. I think for Catholic and Orthodox Churches its very simple. Whatever their church teaches they believe. In many ways this same discussion delves into the priesthood of every believer. In an effort to stay on topic we will refrain from discussing the priesthood of every believer at this point. As to what will follow we will be discussing the topic of hermeneutics.

DEFINITION

To start with I think we need to define the word hermeneutics

“hermeneutics (huhr-muh-no̅o̅ʹtiks), an English transliteration, based on a family of Greek words which, in its broadest sense, means ‘interpretation.’ Other shades of meaning include ‘explanation,’ ‘exposition,’ ‘expression,’ ‘intelligible rendition,’ or even ‘translation.’ This range of uses is reflected in classical Greek as well as in the Greek OT, or Septuagint, and in the NT, where the word family designates the act of explaining difficult or unfamiliar terms or even translating from one language into another (e.g., ; ; ; , ; ; ; cf. ). It can also mean ‘interpretation’ as making sense of an otherwise unintelligible utterance (e.g., , ; , , , , ) or explaining an obscure saying (Eccles. 47:17). It may also refer specifically to the act of interpreting a sacred text in the sense of unfolding hidden, obscure meanings in Scripture or expounding its full significance (e.g., ).

In the broadest sense, hermeneutics is the field of theological study that deals with the interpretation of Scripture. Often, it is characterized as being primarily concerned with the theory or theories of interpretation, and in this respect it can be distinguished from exegesis, which may be thought of as the practical application of hermeneutical principles. As compared with exegesis, hermeneutics is more comprehensive in its scope as well as more theoretical in its orientation. It encompasses both the study of the principles of biblical interpretation and the process through which such interpretation is carried out.

In the ancient and medieval periods, a primary concern was to articulate proper principles or rules for biblical interpretation. In the Jewish tradition, rabbis devised sets of rules for interpretation, such as the seven rules of Rabbi Hillel or the thirteen rules of Rabbi Ishmael. Among Christians, two fundamentally different hermeneutical approaches emerged in the late second and early third centuries A.D., one associated with Alexandria (Clement, Origen), which gave primacy to allegory as the fundamental hermeneutical principle, and another associated with Antioch (Theodore of Mopsuestia, John Chrysostom), which attached greater importance to typology and the literal meaning of Scripture.

Through the medieval period, the dominant hermeneutical approach was the fourfold meaning of Scripture, a scheme allowing a text to be understood in at least four senses: literal, allegorical, moral, and heavenly. The Reformation saw a shift in emphasis but still continued to debate principles of interpretation, such as whether Scripture is its own best interpreter or whether it must be interpreted in light of the church’s received tradition.

The modern period became less concerned with devising rules, norms, and principles of interpretation and more concerned with rethinking, clarifying, and making explicit the process of interpretation itself. In the nineteenth century, philosophical analysis was applied to hermeneutics, resulting in new questions: what is involved in the process of understanding an ancient text from another time and culture? How are a single passage and a whole work interrelated? How does a written text reveal the psychological personality of the writer? In what sense is a text an ‘expression’ of human experience? In the twentieth century, other questions were pressed: how is the essential biblical message (Gk. kerygma, ‘proclamation’) mediated through Scripture? How is this understood and appropriated by modern readers or hearers? What is the relationship between language as a vehicle through which communication occurs and language as a communicative act itself, a ‘word-event’? The hermeneutical process has also been visualized as the fusion of two horizons, that of the interpreter and that of the text itself. In more recent times, the hermeneutical process has been explored from a variety of other perspectives, such as modern literary criticism, structuralism, and the social sciences.”

Achtemeier, P. J., Harper & Row and Society of Biblical Literature. (1985). In Harper’s Bible dictionary (1st ed., pp. 383–384). San Francisco: Harper & Row.

HISTORY

TYPES

GENERAL AND SPECIAL HERMENEUTICS

“Hermeneutics as a general philosophical enterprise should be distinguished from specialized forms like legal and theological hermeneutics, which were designed to interpret a specific corpus of texts or to meet a special need. General hermeneutics traces its origins back to antiquity. In his Peri hermeneias (On interpretation), Aristotle deals with the logic of statements. This approach, which treats hermeneutical problems as belonging to the domain of logic, dominated the sporadic treatment of the subject up to the 18th century. It was only with the work of Schleiermacher that a truly general hermeneutics emerged.

Instead of concentrating on technical rules governing the interpretation of texts, Schleiermacher shifted the focus to the preconditions which make understanding possible. Misunderstanding is a universal problem which threatens all forms of communication and therefore calls for a general hermeneutical theory. The root cause for misunderstanding lies in the individuality of the writer or reader. Although language presupposes shared conventions between persons, the unique experience of the individual cannot be expressed adequately through this medium. The receiver therefore needs help to reproduce the meaning of the sender in his or her own consciousness. The task of hermeneutics is to provide this help. Schleiermacher distinguishes between grammatical and technical (or psychological) interpretation. The former is only a preparatory step for the latter, which represents understanding in the full sense of the word.

The idea of a general hermeneutics for all forms of communication was taken a step further by Dilthey when he applied it to the phenomenon of history. Understanding has to do not only with linguistic communication, but with historical consciousness. Both the possibility and problems of understanding are rooted in this consciousness. On the one hand it provides a link with the past, on the other hand it causes an experience of alienation. Understanding requires a conscious effort to overcome this historical distance. The interpreter must transpose himself or herself out of the present time frame to that of the past. Understanding is a Nacherleben (re-experience) of an original Erlebnis (experience). The re-experience is never identical with the original, but it is co-determined by the interpreter’s own historical horizon. Nonetheless through historical consciousness the interpreter has access to the past as expressed in the tradition and cultural manifestations of the past. The text to be interpreted is not only that of linguistic communication, but of the whole of humanity’s cultural heritage in which is contained the interpretive experience of the past. To interpret this heritage, the social and human sciences require a distinctive method—that of Verstehen (understanding) in contrast to Erklären (explaining), the method of the natural sciences.

The horizon of hermeneutics is expanded further by Heidegger. For Schleiermacher the focus is still on the individual and problems related to interpersonal communication. Dilthey takes it a step further by introducing an epistemological perspective and includes history and tradition as part of his reflection in an effort to explore the hermeneutical dimensions of historical consciousness. For Heidegger the hermeneutical problem is even more encompassing and fundamental; it is essentially ontological in nature. Interpretation is the modus in which reality appears; it is constitutive for being itself. A person’s existence comes into being by an act of interpretation. Reality is the text which is to be interpreted and this reality includes a person’s own existence. The hallmark of the interpretation process is historicity, which is ongoing in nature. In this historical context, Heidegger develops his concept of the hermeneutical circle. To begin with, interpretation never starts with a clean slate. The interpreter brings a certain pre-understanding to the process. This pre-understanding is challenged when new possibilities for existence are exposed through the event of understanding, which leads to a modification or revision of the interpreter’s self-understanding. Finally, the modified understanding becomes the new pre-understanding in the next phase of the process. In conjunction with the hermeneutical circle, Heidegger posits that the communication of existential possibilities through language is fundamental to human existence. Consequently the notion of language as the house of being is developed. The attempt to understand, to discover possibilities for existence, is therefore one of the driving forces behind human history.

From its traditional meaning as the technical rules governing interpretation, the scope of hermeneutics has thus widened to include communicative, epistemological, and finally ontological dimensions. To mark this transition, “hermeneutics” is sometimes reserved for the narrower meaning, while “hermeneutic” is used to indicate the wider sense of the term.

For Gadamer, the insight of Heidegger that propositional truth should be counterpoised with a different kind of truth, that of disclosure, has important consequences. Hermeneutics cannot be only a question of method, striving for objectively secured knowledge, but must open up a dialogical process through which possibilities for existence are acknowledged. Thus a dialogue unfolds between present and past, between text and interpreter, each with its own horizon. The goal of interpretation is the fusion of these horizons; the medium through which this takes place is language. Language is not an objectification of thought but that which speaks to us. In this sense our very existence is linguistic. The implication is that the interpreter always finds himself or herself in the stream of tradition, for here past and present are constantly fused. Tradition and the related concept of “effective history” thus represent important aspects of Gadamer’s hermeneutics.

Habermas and Apel’s critique of Gadamer starts at this point. For them Gadamer’s uncritical acceptance of tradition as authoritative and his ontological understanding of language obscure the fact that language may be used as medium of domination. They develop a “critical hermeneutics” based on the experience of manipulation and propaganda and fed by a suspicion regarding the truth claims of tradition. The aim is to reveal the suppressed interests underlying the apparent normal interaction with the past. Hermeneutics thereby becomes a social science in the form of a critique of ideology.

In the dispute between philosophical and critical hermeneutics, the mediating role of Ricoeur is of special significance. In drawing together hermeneutics, phenomenology, and structuralism, he displays his ability to mediate between what at first sight seem to be mutually exclusive approaches. But through his theory of the conflict of interpretations, Ricoeur demonstrates that hermeneutical philosophy, more directed toward understanding the past and its significance for the present, and critical hermeneutics, more directed toward the future and changing the present, are both one-sided when maintained as absolute positions. In directing his attention to biblical hermeneutics, Ricoeur develops a hermeneutic which grafts an existential interpretation on a structural analysis. He demonstrates how an analysis of the narrative by means of the metaphorical process can open up the world in front of the text.

In close association with the ideas of Gadamer and Ricoeur, Tracy designs his interpretation theory for Christian theology by reemphasizing the underlying hermeneutical nature of Christian theological articulation. At the same time he demonstrates the need for a special hermeneutics for the interpretation of biblical material.

Apart from understanding as a universal problem and hermeneutics as a general theory, a particular hermeneutics may become necessary, depending on the nature of the material to be interpreted and the purpose for which it is done. The revival of interest in Roman law during the 12th century led to the development of a special hermeneutics of jurisprudence, continued in its contemporary form as the interpretation of statutes. Likewise the need for a special hermeneutics for the interpretation of biblical texts was soon recognized which led to various attempts to establish a sacred or biblical hermeneutics in contrast to a profane or secular hermeneutics. But the difference does not lie in different methods and techniques required for biblical texts, but rather in the specific nature of these texts and the interpretative community in which they are read. General and particular hermeneutics have always influenced each other and continue to do so. Major shifts in general hermeneutics are always reflected in specialist applications. For its part, biblical hermeneutics has also been responsible for important developments in general hermeneutics.”

Lategan, B. C. (1992). Hermeneutics. In D. N. Freedman (Ed.), The Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary (Vol. 3, pp. 149–150). New York: Doubleday.

INTENTIONALIST HERMENEUTICS

“The Counter Movement: Intentionalist Hermeneutics. While postmodern skepticism toward the intended meaning of the text has controlled many segments of higher criticism since the 1980s, there are some signs that its influence may be waning. A growing number of studies argue that such skepticism is unwarranted. N. T. Wright (50–69) argues that the solution is found in a critical-realist perspective in which the reader grapples with the text and attempts to ascertain what the author intended to say in the text. Two primary schools of thought espouse a similar realist approach.

The followers of E. D. Hirsch Jr. (W. C. Kaiser Jr., E. E. Johnson) argue for two elements in hermeneutics, the single intent of the author and multiple significances for the readers. There is only one true meaning of a text and that is the meaning the author intended to portray. However, that meaning can have more than one significance for readers in different situations. The task of readers is primarily to ascertain the original meaning and on that basis to see what impact that meaning has on their lives. P. D. Juhl agrees with an intentional approach but argues that one studies the author’s text rather than the author’s intention. Authors are still important, for they situate the text historically, but we know the author only to the extent that we know the text (Juhl, 12–15).

Others are more influenced by the language-game theory of the later L. Wittgenstein as filtered through the analytical philosophy of J. L. Austin and the speech-act theory of J. R. Searle. This is the view that language is first referential and then performative. The language-game theory of the later Wittgenstein developed the idea that communication depends upon the ever-changing linguistic context in which language operates. The context supplies rules whereby the utterance can be understood. Austin applied this to the performative function of texts in three aspects—the locutionary (cognitive, or propositional, message), illocutionary (what the text accomplishes—declaring, warning, etc.) and perlocutionary (what is effected or caused in the hearer or reader—persuading, changing, etc.). Searle has built on the illocutionary aspect and developed a speech-act theory that blends the propositional or referential dimension of a text with its performative force. In other words, texts both assert truth and make demands of the reader, and in their contexts those different functions can be interpreted.

A. C. Thiselton (1992, 597–604) builds on this to develop his “action theory” of hermeneutics. He would see the locutionary and illocutionary functions as combining both meaning (proposition) and significance (demanding response) into a single act of communication. The author provides certain direction markers in the text that draw the reader into the extralinguistic world of the text and perform certain actions on the reader. A “ ‘believing’ reading” allows the reader to participate in the text’s effects and to discover its intended purpose. K. Vanhoozer (1995, 314–18) agrees that readers play a primary role in interpretation but argues that they must do so responsibly by seeking not just to “overstand” the text (ask only their own questions of it) but also to “understand” it (seek the meaning and sense of the text itself). The interpreter has an ethical responsibility to allow the communicative aim of the text to guide the reader to its intended meaning.”

Osborne, G. R. (1997). Hermeneutics. In R. P. Martin & P. H. Davids (Eds.), Dictionary of the later New Testament and its developments (electronic ed., p. 474). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.

IRENIC

I would think that when it comes to the process of interpretation you really have two choices.You can either allow others to do the hermeneutics for you and accept all their biases. Or do the work yourself as many protestants do.It is certainly better to do it yourself because at least you know your own biases. Even the most well meaning Christian can inject their bias into a teaching without realizing it. If you just accept everything they say then you accept their bias blindly. Personally I do not have to agree 100% with my church or even other members of my church because I am ok with the fact there are many applications. There is one interpretation of the text but the Spirit applies it in many different ways to different people. I would also argue that since there are many schools of regarding the process of interpretation one could never rely on one person anyhow. I believe Antiochian Hermeneutics is the best approach. There are many modern scholars that have set up a process that can be followed time after time. This process can also verify how one came to that conclusion. It can be checked by others. If we all agreed to follow Antioch Hermeneutics we would all come closer to agreement with regard to the one proper interpretation of any text. There are many passages where there are multiple possible interpretations of the text. We should have grace in those case. We should also learn from each other regarding the way the Spirit applies each passage to our lives so that we may practice what we believe.