Between freedom and givenness: (a study of the hermeneutical consequences of the concept of canon for the authority of scripture)
- Authors: Latham, Jonathan Cyril
- Date: 1990
- Subjects: Bible -- Evidences, authority, etc. , Authority -- Religious aspects , Canon (Literature
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: vital:1216 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1001546
- Description: The aim of this thesis is to arrive at an understanding of the authority of scripture that is able to accommodate both a faith perspective and the fruits of the historical-critical approach to the New Testament. Put differently, the aim of this thesis is the pursuit of a specifically christian, faith-promoting, reading of the New Testament whilst still enjoying the benefit, in an as uncompromised a form as possible, of the historical- critical approach. In a sense it may be said that this task, given that the roots of both the historical-critical approach and modern Western culture are deeply imbedded in Rationalism, is equivalent to the basic hermeneutical question of whether it is possible to interpret scripture relevantly from within a cultural web of meaning that does not readily accommodate that embodied in the New Testament. In section one of this dissertation we present a characteristic depiction, based on the historical-critical theory of literature, of the authority of the New Testament. This is followed by a brief assessment that makes explicit why the historical- critical approach is not conducive to the adoption of a faith perspective on these writings. In section two, still and inevitably based on critical foundations, we adopt a perspective that is more sympathetic to faith and that seeks to discover in the concerns evidenced in the canonical process, when traditions about Jesus gradually took on more complex and stable forms, culminating in the canon of the New Testament, guidelines in helping us to deal with the problem with which this study is concerned . In the specific example of the rather ordinary concerns underlying the unusual history of the pericope de adultera (John 7:53-8:11), examined against the background of the interests underlying the canonical process, it becomes clear that christians from the very beginning faced a dilemma not unlike that with which the historical-critical approach confronts us. They had to interpret afresh, and faithfully, the traditions in order to meet the demands of situations that had never been foreseen by earlier tradents. In this respect, therefore, the history of the pericope de adultera presents us with an ongoing struggle to hold in tension the demands of new contexts with the imperative of strict continuity with Jesus. In section three, on the basis of the foundation of the authority of scripture in strict continuity with Jesus combined with the contextual reinterpretation of the tradition, the social sciences are employed. Using the social sciences, it is discovered that the two contradictory approaches that we wish to reconcile form part of two different models for interpreting reality. It is on this basis, and made possible by the common culture underlying these opposing models and by the common contact with an unspecified common core of concrete reality, that a solution is proposed in terms of a complex 'fusion of horizons', promoted by a 'precipitative environment'. In the conclusion our solution is decisively aligned with the concerns evidenced in the canonical process
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- Date Issued: 1990
Text and context : an examination of the way in which John's prologue has been interpreted by selected writers : Origen, Luther and Bultmann
- Authors: Latham, Jonathan Cyril
- Date: 1988 , 2013-02-28
- Subjects: Bible -- John -- Criticism, interpretation etc.
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:1225 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1004612 , Bible -- John -- Criticism, interpretation etc.
- Description: In chapter one of this work, as a preliminary to the formulation of the question that this thesis will attempt to answer, the changing understanding of the part played by the interpreter in the process of interpretation is discussed. This outline begins with the understanding of the role of the interpreter in liberal theology - where he is thought of as one who applies critical methods to the text in a detached and scientific way. After this the hermeneutic spiral is discussed - the formation of this model acknowledges to a greater degree the individual and human part played by the interpreter. This is followed by a brief examination of the most recent theories of interpretation in which meaning is regarded as residing not in the text but in the interpreter himself. The task of this thesis is to determine whether, as these recent theorists suggest, the reader creates meaning instead of reading out what somehow lies in the text itself. The task of this thesis is to ascertain, by studying the interpretationsof John's Prologue by Origen, Luther and Bultmann, whether the text does in fact operate as a series of sign-posts that pOint the interpreter to a destination within his own semantic universe. This may be determined by noting whether or not the contexts, i n the broadest sense, of these interpreters have played a formative part in their interpretations. contextual influences are regarded as existing wherever there is a procedure or meaning in the interpreter's commentary which one expe cts to find there as a result of one's knowledge of the interpreter's life and previous writings. Our research reveals that Orige n, Luther and Bultmann have produced three very different commentaries in which the common denominator is the formative influence of the interpreter's context. Each of these writers has produced an interpretation that is consistent, in both approach and theology, with their previous exegetical and theological thought. This indicates that contextual factors have played a significant part in determining their interpr etations of John 1 :1-18. It would appear that these interpreters have been led to find the meaning of John's Prologue not with reference to any new, unprecedented set of symbols, but with reference to their own, well-worn semantic universes. In the conclusion it is noted that this research appears to support what many modern theorists have said as to the locus of meaning in interpretation. In the conclusion it is also noted that many of the fears raised by these findings - that readers and writers, or speakers and hearers, may become so isolated and trapped in their own thought worlds that any real contact with the outside is impossible - may be groundless. These findings also point to a certain consistency between the interpreters and their communities. This refutes the fears as to the isolation and solitary development of the individual in that it points to a certain community or corporate aspect which plays a part in the development of the indivi dual's semantic universe . , KMBT_363 , Adobe Acrobat 9.53 Paper Capture Plug-in
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- Date Issued: 1988