Table of Contents
Preface xiii
I The Aims and Scope of Hermeneutics 1
1 Toward a Definition of Hermeneutics 1
2 What Should We Hope to Gain from a Study of Hermeneutics? 5
3 Differences between "Philosophical Hermeneutics" and More Traditional Philosophical Thought, and Their Relation to Explanation and Understanding 7
4 Preliminary and Provisional Understanding (Pre-understanding) and the Hermeneutical Circle 13
5 Recommended Initial Reading 16
II Hermeneutics in the Contexts of Philosophy, Biblical Studies, Literary Theory, and the Social Self 17
1 Further Differences from More Traditional Philosophical Thought: Community and Tradition; Wisdom or Knowledge? 17
2 Approaches in Traditional Biblical Studies: The Rootedness of Texts Located in Time and Place 20
3 The Impact of Literary Theory on Hermeneutics and Biblical Interpretation: The New Criticism 24
4 The Impact of Literacy Theory: Reader-Response Theories 29
5 Wider Dimensions of Hermeneutics: Interest, Social Sciences, Critical Theory, Historical Reason, and Theology 31
6 Recommended Initial Reading 34
III An Example of Hermeneutical Methods: The Parables of Jesus 35
1 The Definition of a Parable and Its Relation to Allegory 35
2 The Plots of Parables and Their Existential Interpretation 39
3 The Strictly Historical Approach: Jülicher, Dodd, Jeremias 43
4 The Limits of the Historical Approach: A Retrospective View? 48
5 The Rhetorical Approach and Literary Criticism 52
6 Other Approaches: The New Hermeneutic, Narrative Worlds, Postmodernity, Reader Response, and Allegory 56
7 Recommended Initial Reading 59
IV A Legacy of Perennial Questions from the AncientWorld: Judaism and the Ancient Greeks 60
1 The Christian Inheritance: The Hermeneutics of Rabbinic Judaism 60
2 The Literature of Greek-Speaking Judaism 65
3 Jewish Apocalyptic Literature around the Time of Christ 70
4 The Greek Roots of Interpretation: The Stoics 72
5 Recommended Initial Reading 74
V The New Testament and the Second Century 76
1 The Old Testament as a Frame of Reference or Pre-understanding: Paul and the Gospels 76
2 Hebrews, 1 Peter, and Revelation: The Old Testament as Pre-understanding 80
3 Does the New Testament Employ Allegorical Interpretation or Typology? 83
4 Passages in Paul That Might Be "Difficult": Septuagint or Hebrew? 87
5 Old Testament Quotations in the Gospels, 1 Peter, and the Epistle to the Hebrews 89
6 Second-Century Interpretation and Hermeneutics 94
7 Recommended Initial Reading 99
VI From the Third to the Thirteenth Centuries 100
1 The Latin West: Hippolytus, Tertullian, Ambrose, Jerome 100
2 Alexandrian Traditions: Origen; with Athanasius, Didymus and Cyril 104
3 The Antiochene School: Diodore, Theodore, John Chrysostom, and Theodoret 109
4 The Bridge to the Middle Ages: Augustine and Gregory the Great 114
5 The Middle Ages: Nine Figures from Bede to Nicholas of Lyra 117
6 Recommended Initial Reading 123
VII Reform, the Enlightenment, and the Rise of Biblical Criticism 124
1 Reform: Wycliffe, Luther, Melanchthon 125
2 Further Reform: William Tyndale and John Calvin 130
3 Protestant Orthodoxy, Pietism, and the Enlightenment 133
4 The Rise of Biblical Criticism in the Eighteenth Century 138
5 Ten Leaders of Biblical Criticism in the Nineteenth Century 143
6 Recommended Initial Reading 147
VIII Schleiermacher and Dilthey 148
1 Influences, Career, and Major Works 149
2 Schleiermacher's New Conception of Hermeneutics 153
3 Psychological and Grammatical Interpretation: The Comparative and the Divinatory; The Hermeneutical Circle 155
4 Further Themes and an Assessment of Schleiermacher 158
5 The Hermeneutics of Wilhelm Dilthey 161
6 Recommended Initial Reading 164
IX Rudolf Bultmann and Demythologizing the New Testament 166
1 Influences and Earlier Concerns 166
2 Bultmann's Notions of "Myth" 170
3 Existential Interpretation and Demythologizing: Specific Examples 173
4 Criticisms of Bultmann's Program as a Whole 178
5 The Subsequent Course of the Debate: Left-Wing and Right-Wing Critics 180
6 Recommended Initial Reading 184
X Some Mid-Twentieth-Century Approaches: Barth, the New Hermeneutic, Structuralism, Post-Structuralism, and Barr's Semantics 185
1 Karl Barth's Earlier and Later Hermeneutics 185
2 The So-Called New Hermeneutic of Fuchs and Ebeling 190
3 Structuralism and Its Application to Biblical Studies 195
4 Post-Structuralism and Semantics as Applied to the Bible 201
5 Recommended Initial Reading 204
XI Hans-Georg Gadamer's Hermeneutics: The Second Turning Point 206
1 Background, Influences, and Early Life 206
2 Truth and Method Part I: Critique of "Method" and the "World" of Art and Play 211
3 Truth and Method Part II: Truth and Understanding in the Human Sciences 215
4 Truth and Method Part III: Ontological Hermeneutics and Language, with Assessments 222
5 Further Assessments of the Three Parts of Truth and Method 225
6 Recommended Initial Reading 227
XII The Hermeneutics of Paul Ricoeur 228
1 Background: Early Life, Influences, and Significance 228
2 The Middle Period: The Interpretation of Freud, The Conflict of Interpretations, and Metaphor 232
3 The Later Period: Time and Narrative 236
4 Oneself as Another: The Identity of the Self, "Otherness," and Narrative 242
5 Oneself as Another: Implications for Ethics; Other Later Works 244
6 Five Assessments: Text, Author's Intention, and Creativity 248
7 Recommended Initial Reading 254
XIII The Hermeneutics of Liberation Theologies and Postcolonial Hermeneutics 255
1 Definition, Origins, Development, and Biblical Themes 255
2 Gustavo Gutiérrez and the Birth of Liberation Theology 260
3 The Second Stage: "Base Communities" and José Porfirio Miranda in the 1970s 263
4 The Second Stage Continued: Juan Luis Segundo, J. Severino Croatto, Leonardo Boff, and Others 267
5 The Third Stage: Postcolonial Hermeneutics from the 1980s to the Present 271
6 A Further Assessment and Evaluation 276
7 Recommended Initial Reading 277
XIV Feminist and Womanist Hermeneutics 279
1 The Public Visibility and Ministry of Women from Earliest Times 280
2 First- and Second-Wave Feminism and Feminist Hermeneutics 283
3 Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza's In Memory of Her: The Argument 287
4 Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza's In Memory of Her: An Evaluation 291
5 The Fragmentation of the Second Wave 294
6 Womanist Hermeneutics 295
7 A Provisional Assessment of Feminist Hermeneutics 301
8 Recommended Initial Reading 305
XV Reader-Response and Reception Theory 306
1 Reader-Response Theory: Its Origins and Diversity 306
2 An Evaluation and the Application of the Theory to Biblical Studies 311
3 Is Allegorical Interpretation a Subcategory of Reader-Response Theory? A Suggestion 314
4 The Recent Turn to Reception Theory and Hans Robert Jauss 316
5 Reception Theory and Specific Biblical Passages 320
6 Recommended Initial Reading 325
XVI Postmodernism and Hermeneutics 327
1 Is Postmodernity Compatible with Christian Faith? Three Possible Answers 327
2 European Postmodernism: Jacques Derrida (with the later Barthes) 331
3 European Postmodernism: Jean-François Lyotard (with Jean Baudrillard) 336
4 European Postmodernism: Michel Foucault; Knowledge and Power 341
5 American Postmodernism: Richard Rorty (with the Later Stanley Fish) 344
6 Recommended Initial Reading 348
XVII Some Concluding Comments 349
1 Divine Agency and the Authority of Scripture 349
2 Advances in Linguistics and Pragmatics: Politeness Theory 350
3 Brevard Childs and the Canonical Approach 353
4 Fuller Meaning, Typology, and Allegorical Interpretation 354
5 Catholic Biblical Scholarship and the Two Great Turning Points 354
Selective Bibliography 356
Index of Names 381
Index of Subjects 390
Index of Scripture References and Other Ancient Sources 400
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