04-2 Hermeneutics.pdf

12 LOGIAGreek and Hebrew thought has foolishly influenced the linguisticconclusions of traditional linguistics (p. 8 ff.). A section on the falseassumptions of the “true etymological” meaning of words is presentedalong with examples in chapter six (p. 107 ff.). Chapter eightanalyzes and criticizes some of the principles of Kittel’s TheologicalDictionary of the New Testament. Thiselton’s article “Semantics andNew Testament Interpretation” outlines six false assumptions withwhich interpretation in the past has been plagued (p. 76).75. Thiselton, “Semantics,” p. 95.76. See Noam Chomsky, The Logical Structure of Linguistic Theoryand Current Issues in Linguistic Theory (London: Mouton andCo, 1964). See also J. P. B. Allen and Paul Van Buren, Chomsky:Selected Readings (New York: Oxford University Press, 1972);Ronald Wardhaugh, Introduction to Linguistics (New York:McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1972), pp. 99-137. Palmer, Semantics,p. 151, also gives a short overview of generative grammar. He writesthat scholars argue whether such a deep structure actually exists: “ifthere is a deep structure, it is not syntactic but semantic.”77. Chomsky, The Logical Structure of Linguistic Theory, p. 6.78. Thiselton, “Semantics,” p. 96.79. Eugene A. Nida and Charles R. Taber, The Theory and Practiceof Translation, Vol. 7 of Helps for Translators (Leiden: Brill,1982.), p. 39.80. Thiselton maintains that transformational techniques arealready employed in New Testament exegesis and traditional grammarby implication. He cites the traditional contrast betweenobjective and subjective genitives. See Thiselton, “Semantics,” p. 97,where he uses “the testimony of Christ” (1 Cor 1:6) as an example.81. Lepschy, p. 126.82. Thiselton, Two Horizons, p. 128.83. For example, Thiselton introduces the differencebetween the various subdivisions of semiotics, which includethe following: syntax, semantics, and pragmatics (Thiselton,Two Horizons, p. 122).84. See this author’s STM thesis, in which a side by side comparisonof “Synchronic Semantic Value” and Usus Loquendi ispresented to show their similarities and differences. Mark Sell, “AStudy to Identify and Evaluate the Proper and Improper Use ofModern Linguistics in Confessional Lutheran HermeneuticsBased upon the Intersecting Relationship of the Modern LinguisticPrinciple of ‘Synchronic Semantic Value’ and the TraditionalLinguistic Principle Known as the Usus Loquendi,” unpublishedSTM Thesis, 1991.85. AE 37:294-303.86. AE 37:295.87. AE 37:296.88. AE 37:296-300.89. Martin Chemnitz, The Lord’s Supper, trans. J. A. O. Preus(St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1979), p. 55.90. This author believes that meaning and context inhermeneutics has a tremendous amount to say concerning the currentstruggles of the church and her Gottesdienst. The “removedcontext of situation” as a scientific category helps us to understandthat the Bible itself does have a context, the church. Yet the churchalso has a context, the sinful world. We cannot fall into the Platonicnoose of separating the church from the Word, nor the Word fromthe church. They are incarnationally bound.91. James W. Voelz, What Does This Mean? Biblical Hermeneuticsin the Post-Modern World, (St. Louis: CPH, 1995 [forthcoming]).