FROM EXEGESIS TO HERMENEUTICS - Rice School of Pastoral ...

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32 HORIZONSamong responsible biblical scholars and theologians. It is the modelinsistently proposed by the theological community to pastors as analternative to either ignoring the biblical data altogether or misusing it insuperficial proof-texting. There is no question about its theoretical andfunctional superiority to the first model. But there is some questionamong increasing numbers of biblical scholars about whether it is a fullyadequate model. 30Let us turn then to our third model for the use of biblical materialswhich I shall call, in the language of Vatican II, the "Bible as pure andperennial source of spiritual life" 31model or, more prosaically, thehermeneutical model. The contemporary philosophical discipline ofhermeneutics, which involves both a global theory of human understandingand a special theory of the understanding of texts, 32particularlyancient and classical texts, is beginning to influence the field ofbiblical studies. Indeed it is raising a certain challenge to the hegemonyand exclusivity of the exegetical model we have discussed. Again, let meinsist that the work of historical criticism remains and will alwaysremain an essential element in biblical research. The question is notwhether it should be done, but whether it is enough. Hermeneuticaltheory suggests that while it absolutely must be done it is definitely notenough and that rather than seeing historical criticism as the definingmethodology of biblical interpretation we should see it as one method(although not an optional one) along with others which should be usedin an interdisciplinary analysis of the text as one important step in theinterpretative process. (One almost hesitates to make this last point insome Roman Catholic circles lest the fundamentalistically inclined whohave never understood or accepted the essential role of historical criticismin biblical interpretation take it as license to bypass the seriouseffort to understand the text in its historical context. But the point has tobe made in learned circles because the time has come to incorporatehistorical critical methodology into a larger interpretive model.)The two major figures in the development of contemporary hermeneuticaltheory are Hans-Georg Gadamer, author of Truth andMethod, 33 and Paul Ricoeur, among whose most important works is his30Some influential contributions to this recent discussion are W. Wink, The Bible inHuman Transformation: Toward a New Paradigm for Biblical Study (Philadelphia: Fortress,1973) and P. Stuhlmacher, Historical Criticism and Theological interpretation ofScripture: Towards a Hermeneutics of Consent, tr. and introd. R. A. Harrisville (Philadelphia:Fortress, 1977). See also D. C. Steinmetz, "The Superiority of Pre-Critical Exegesis,"Theology Today 37 (April 1980), 27-38.31See Dei Verbum 21.32Perhaps the clearest discussion of the plurality of meanings attached to the term"hermeneutics" and the relationships among them is R. E. Palmer, Hermeneutics: interpretationTheory in Schleiermacher, Dilthey, Heidegger, and Gadamer (Evanston, IL:Northwestern University Press, 1969), esp. pp. 3-71.ωΗ. G. Gadamer, Truth and Method (New York: Seabury, 1975).
Schneiders: From Exegesis to Hermeneutics 33Interpretation Theory. 34 Obviously, I cannot summarize in this paper themonumental work of these two thinkers, but I will extract a central ideafrom each in order to illustrate how the evolving hermeneutical modelwould affect our understanding of biblical scholarship and its relationshipto the pastoral work of the Church.A major contribution of Ricoeur is his masterful analysis of thenotion of "text." 35 He challenges our naïve conception that a text issimply "talk writ down," a dialogue fixed on paper. He maintains thatthe act of writing fundamentally alters the nature of the communicationand calls into play a different set of operations from those we use intrying to understand our partner in a conversation. Hermeneutics, saysRicoeur, begins when dialogue ends. 36 Now, exegesis as we described itin the second model is based on an unexamined assumption of theessential identity of text with talk, precisely the identity Ricoeur challenges.When a text is composed, says Ricoeur, several sea-changes occur.First, the text becomes semantically independent of the intention of itsauthor. 37 It now means whatever it actually says, not necessarily whatthe author intended to say. By way of analogy, if a student objects to thefailing grade I gave her on an exam by saying that I did not understandwhat she meant to say, my response can only be that I had to grade whatshe actually wrote, not what she meant. To write what she meant was hertask. Once the text was written her intention ceased to play a determiningrole. The meaning of the text is now independent of its author.Unlike the conversation partner who can continually re-express herthought until she makes herself understood, the author ceases to functiononce the text is completed.Secondly, a text is always composed within some form, such asnarrative, poetry, play, or the like. Literary genre is not simply a usefuldevice for classifying texts but is actually a code which shapes thematerial in a certain way and also determines in certain ways the interpretiveactivity of the reader. 38 In other words, a text is not astraightforward communication of factual data which the reader absorbsbut a strategy for involving the reader in a certain way and on severallevels with the subject matter of the text.Thirdly, a text once written is no longer determined by the understandingof the original audience. 39 It is now open to whoever can read itand different audiences will read it from within their own situations.34 P. Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory: Discourse and the Surplus of Meaning (FortWorth, TX: The Texas Christian University Press, 1976).35 Ibid., pp. 25-44.m Ibid., p. 32.37 Ibid., pp. 25-37.38 ibid., pp. 32-34.m Ibid., pp. 31-32.
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