1. S John Bosco Department of English SJC
Hermeneutics
S John Bosco
Department of English
SJC

2. Heidegger German Philosopher
Wilhelm Dilthey German Historian
Schlelermacher German Theologian
Hans- Georg GadamerGerman Philosopher
Paul Ricoeur French Philosopher

3. Influenced by German Phenomenology and existential Philosophy

4. Hermeneutical circle
The text
Explanation-understanding(prefiguration)
Appropriation(refiguation)

5. a part of theology concerned with death, judgement, soul –eschatology

6. Understanding is an historical encounter which calls forth personal experience of being there in the world

7. 2 areas of understanding
The question of what is involved in the event of understanding a text
The question of what understanding itself is

8. History of hermeneutics
Hermeneutics and philosophy
Hermeneutics and religion
Hermeneutics and phenomenology
Hermeneutics and reader response theory

9. Hermes(message)
Plato
Aristotle

10. Interpretation
To say, explain, translate

11. Her concerned with problems, methods, purpose of interpretation
History, culture, cultural diversity, language, distance between author and the interpreter
it is a science – rules and principles
began in the 15th century, humanist education

12. Biblical Hermeneutics
General Hermeneutics
The theory that analyzes interpretation, specifically, how texts communicate, how meaning is derived from texts and/or their authors, and what it is that people do when they interpret a text
Biblical Hermeneutics
The discipline of interpreting the Bible which includes exegesis (the discovery of the original meaning) and the contextualization of meaning to Christian theology and practice

13. Words have meaning and ideas have consequences

14. Her. Is the theory of text interpretation
Bible, Wisdom lit, Philo text
Modern her. Verbal and Non Verbal
When Good Questions are asked, new knowl, can be produced
Philo. Her. Is not a method of understanding , but rather a process of understanding
Understanding is not a reproductive process bt a productive process

15. Biblical Hermeneutics: Two Worlds
Reader’s world
Textual world

16. Process of interpretation is applicable to practice of understanding
Wilhelm Dilthey, Ger, Philo, Devloped Friedrich Schleiermacher’ s idea
Hermeneutic circle
The reader cant understand any part of the text until the whole is understood, while the whole cant be understood until the parts are understood

17. The Necessity of Biblical Hermeneutics
Every reader is an interpreter.
Because the nature of language and communication as inferential
Aoccdrnig to a rseearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae.  The rset can be a total mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.   

18. What is usually spontaneous for us when reading documents in our native language and of our same cultural context necessarily needs to be more consciously addressed when reading ancient texts
If theology is to make sense now about the meaning of Jesus Christ whose career took place then, it has in that moment engaged in a transfer of meaning. It has carried out a hermeneutic…the question is whether that hermeneutic is to be the object of deliberate theological reflection, or whether it is to be assumed and allowed to operate without the benefit of theological clarification.” (Paul J. Achtemeier, An Introduction to the New Hermeneutic)

19. Dilthey diff. bt understanding and explanation
Distin. Bt human sciences ans natural sciences
E.D. Hirsch- author’s willed meaning
Horizon of expectation- generic, cultural, conventional
Verbal meaning is stable
Matin Heidegger and Hans instist on the historicity and temporality of understanding

20. Mar. Hna meaning – constituting a temporal structure of interpretative understanding, which is already engaged in the activity of inter.
Meaning is always codetermined, reader’s horizon attempting to fuse with the author
An inescapable relativity and indeterminacy s thereby introduced into the notion of interpretation
Dasein – being there

21. Hans- argues Inter. Of past lit arises from argument bt past and present
Present perspective is associated with past
The past can only be grasped thru limited perspective of the present
Text Inter. Depends on knowl. Assumption, cultural backdrop, exp and insights of the reader

22. Her cal methods and ideas have impact on Phenomenology RRT Wolfggang Iser, Stanley Fish
Jurgen Hebermas Inter in terms of everyday Lang, than in terms of forms of social life

23. Historically affected consciousness

24. Thank you.