Sermon Tone Analysis

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.