On Hermeneutics and Exegesis
Rev. Dr. Thomas C. Sorenson
August, 2019
Prepared for the
Wednesday morning Bible study group at Brookdale, Monroe, Washington
Hermeneutics is the theory of interpretation of a text (or
of anything else for that matter, but our concern is with texts).
Exegesis is the practice of interpretation of a text.
Understanding hermeneutics and exegesis is important for
everyone in their search for meaning in a text. The principles of current
hermeneutics and exegesis include the following:
The human mind creates meaning. Meaning is not something
that exists out there objectively on its own. “Interpretation is the quest for
meaning, and humans make meaning.”[1]
Page 62
Therefore the meaning of a text does not reside in the text
itself. It can’t because meaning comes only from the operation of a human mind
on the text.
“Meaning arises and can only arise in the encounter of a
reader with a text.”[2]
Page 63
Because meaning is a creation of human mind, all meaning is
subjective in the sense that it is created by a subject.
The consequences of the reality that meaning arises only in
the encounter of a reader with a text include:
It is impossible to read a text
without interpreting it.
Every reader brings her or his own
particularity, her or his experiences, to the reading of any text. “The meaning
of a text arises in the reader’s encounter with the text in all of her
particularity, both those things she has in common with others in her context
and the things that are unique to her.” Page 67
Because no person’s particularity
is identical to any other person’s particularity the meaning of any text can
and probably will be different for each reader at least to some extent.
Because meaning does not reside in
the text alone any text can mean something different from and even more than what
it meant to its author. Waiting for Godot. Called a “surplus of
meaning.”
The principles of hermeneutics apply to the texts of the
Bible in exactly the same way they apply to any other text.
Yet there are principles of interpretation that stop us from
concluding that any text can mean anything at all.
Doing interpretation, as distinct from the principles of
interpretation, is called “exegesis.”
The principles of exegesis include:
Spend time with a text before you
decide what it means to you.
Every text has its own integrity
that we must respect. “Good interpretation always respects the integrity of the
text it is interpreting.” Page 75
To be legitimate the meaning a
reader finds in a text must bear a reasonable relationship to the text itself.
A valid interpretation cannot contradict the clear words of the text.
Interpretation must begin with a
solid understanding of what the words of a text actually are and what they
mean. In the Bible that isn’t always easy, but no interpretation is valid that
ignores important issues about what a text actually says.
The “worlds of a text.” Every text
functions in three different worlds. They are:
The world behind the text.
This is the world in and for which
the text was originally written. Having at least some understanding of the
world(s) behind the texts of the Bible is essential for interpreting them well.
It will contain things that the
author(s) assumed the reader(s) would know and therefore does not make them
explicit in the text.
It includes the cultural
understandings and assumptions of the time and place in and for which the text
was originally written.
The world(s) behind the Bible:
It was prerational. That doesn’t
mean it was irrational, it means that it had a different understanding of the
nature of truth than we do, all of us being rationalists in our understanding
of truth. They didn’t for the most part look to human reason as a source of
truth.
It was prescientific. The people
of the world of the Bible had essentially no scientific understanding of the
nature of the cosmos, of the earth, of human nature, or of so many other things
that we have learned from science. They didn’t look to science as a source of
truth.
The people of that world conveyed
truth mostly by telling stories rather than through conveying facts. The world
of the Bible was much less concerned with facts than we are. When people heard
a story they would not first ask if the story were factually true. They would
ask: What does this story mean? The stories in the Bible were written much more
to convey meaning than to convey facts.
In the world behind the Bible
people were much more accustomed to expressing and understanding truth through
metaphor, symbol, and myth than we are.
The world of the text.
This is the world that appears in
the text itself.
It interacts with the world behind
the text, the world behind the text being reflected either directly or
indirectly in the text itself.
It can critique the world behind
the text.
It can offer a new vision for the
world behind the text.
The world of the text may use
specific literary forms to convey its message. Mark, for example, often used a
three-part structure to make a point. See for example Mark 12:38 to 13:2 as a
good example.
The world in front of the text.
This is the world the reader
brings to the text.
It includes the reader’s
understandings of the nature of truth, the nature of reality, the nature of
literature, etc.
It includes the reader’s previous
understandings of the text, if any. Recognizing those previous understandings
is particularly important when reading the Bible, for virtually all of us have
previous understandings of many of the stories in the Bible. When we read a
story we think we understand we should set our previous understanding aside and
start anew with the actual text itself as opposed to what someone has told us
or that we have formed ourselves, understanding always that true objectivity in
understanding is neither possible nor necessarily desirable.
The world in front of the text
includes our search of meaning in the text for us. The meaning we find
in a text can be valid for us as long a we don’t stray too far from the text
itself.
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