Not exact matches
This is precisely why he argued that judges often need, through careful
historical analysis, to consult the original
meaning of the words in the legal
text.
In another essay he casts a distrustful eye to learned commentaries — in his view, they often obscure the plain
meaning of the
text as they explore the linguistic and
historical context
of a passage.
Honoring reason in the reading
of scripture
means «giving up merely arbitrary or whimsical readings
of texts, and paying attention to lexical,
historical considerations,» says Wright.
Historical criticism causes us to miss the message the original author was trying to convey, what issues their audience was dealing with, and as a result, we completely miss the message and
meaning of the
text.
I do not elsewhere «skewer» conservatives for their devotion to the founders» intentions because
of its resemblance to the principle
of sola scriptura — I note this mostly as a bemused observation — but because, apparently unlike Reilly, I do not subscribe to a «Great Man» view
of historical agency and historiography in which the mens auctoris provides the definitive key to the
meaning of texts or
historical events.
This approach's disadvantage is that it strips the
text of any
historical meaning.
For example, he brands as «rubbish» Francis Watson's complaint that
historical criticism treats «
texts as
historical artifacts whose
meaning is wholly determined by their
historical circumstances
of origin.»
Even though the «
historical section» or humiliation seems even to disappear from some
of these kerygmatic
texts, their original intention was to emphasize the meaningfulness
of Jesus» historicity or humiliation, and only with gnosticism was this original
meaning lost.
He remembers that there have been plenty
of theologians down to the present day who by subtle doctrines and distinctions have not wanted to admit the
meaning of that
text from the Letter to Timothy, or who tried to evacuate its clear sense and force by saying that such non-Christians could not believe because they have not got the
historical revelation
of God's word and so could not be saved, because without real faith salvation is impossible.
So
historical - cultural background studies are helpful, but even they will not give you absolute certainty about the
meaning of any
text.
Does this
mean that we should then move from a
historical to an existential understanding
of the
text?
With its appeal to the so - called
historical - critical method for gaining an insight into the
meaning of the
text, this approach is to be associated with the liberal theology stemming from the Enlightenment.
With a priori alienation (Verfremdung) from the
text as the starting point, the intelligibility
of mind, laboring in and through methodology, would transport the interpreter into the realm
of another time and place and by the determination
of meaning in relation to a specific
historical context would illuminate the obscure
text.
The original
meaning of the
text — that is, the intention
of the writer in the
historical, cultural context
of the writing — is disregarded by dispensationalists.
But the fact that it is a
text of Scripture in the Church's proclamation
means that an
historical interpretation
of a sermon
of the past is incomplete.
Others eliminate the force
of the difference, but not the difference itself, by making various distinctions, for example, between the
historical «accidents» and the eternal «essence» (as in Harnack), or between the familiar present worldview, which is normative, and the strange, alien past one, which is not (as in J. Weiss and Schweitzer), or between what a
text «says» and what it «
means» (as in Bultmann, whose approach attempts to resolve the tensions involved in the former two enterprises).
Most
of the current hermeneutical options tend toward reduction or exclusion in the act
of interpretation, as when they utilize either structuralist or «
historical - critical» methods, focus on either sociological data or «ideas,» and locate «
meaning» in the internal «world»
of the
text, or in the external reality to which it refers, or in the author's intention, or iii the reader's response (see OTIPP 1).
Even if it is true, finally, that the
text accomplishes its
meaning only in personal appropriation, in the «
historical» decision (and this I believe strongly with Bultmann against all the current philosophies
of a discourse without the subject), this appropriation is only the final stage, the last threshold
of an understanding which has first been uprooted and moved into another
meaning.
In his Presidential Address to the North American Patristic Society in 1994, Frederick W. Norris acknowledged that «some
of the most interesting voices interpreting early Christian
texts are Christian theologians from Africa, Asia, and Latin America,» and that some
of them «make
historical comments and acknowledge that their sense
of what the
texts mean is formed by their present commitments and their membership in specific communities.»
When there were contradictions in those materials, a reconciliation was effected, or at least attempted, through the use
of the «different levels
of interpretation», where the
historical meaning, the moral
meaning, the theological
meaning, and the highly mystical
meaning could be distinguished and an appropriate distribution made in the discussion
of this or that biblical
text.
Enns goes on to remind readers that «a
text's
meaning is rooted in its
historical and literary context,» and to argue that the
historical and literary context
of much
of the Old Testament can be found in the questions and concerns
of post-exilic Israel.
Of course, I am not a theologian or well read or educated in the Bible with all the pertinent
historical, cultural, or grammatical facts required to understand and interpret the
text in my intellectual grasp, so I may have misunderstood your
meaning, missed a point, or maybe we're saying the same thing but each from a different perspective, like is said those who misread Paul's Roman epistle and James» epistle.
Stackhouse calls
historical work governed by these questions «postcritical theological reflection about the
meaning of a
text» (218).
To be true to the Incarnational Principle expressed by Pius XII we must seek to understand the
meaning of the
texts in their
historical, cultural context.
Made up
of a wide - range
of interesting and exciting lessons, students should complete this scheme having gathered vital skills in: interpreting the significant
meanings of the
text, understanding the writer's ideas within the
text, identifying the traits
of key characters, settings, and themes, and relating the
text to its social and
historical context.
Made up
of a wide - range
of interesting and exciting lessons, students should complete this scheme having gathered vital skills in: interpreting the significant
meanings of the
text, understanding the writer's ideas within the
text, identifying the traits
of key characters, settings, and themes, understanding dramatic and language devices, and relating the
text to its social and
historical context.
This may
mean, for example, reading comprehension
of grade - level
text, standards
of mathematical practices, scientific inquiry processes,
historical reasoning or academic discussion techniques aligned with speaking and listening standards.
These adjustments might include, for example, drawing a diagram to help in the understanding
of a mathematical problem, or determining that more research is needed to be able to analyse
historical events, or re-reading a
text to clarify the
meaning.
His multi-media work engages with language on both a literal and formal level and through the use
of [often incomplete]
texts, as well as images and considered juxtapositions, eliciting new and sometimes radical
meanings from
historical interpretation and narrative.
Katja Novitskova and Timur Si - Qin Artists: Katja Novitskova and Timur Si - Qin Curated by Agatha Wara Adopting the language
of global advertising and offering acute reflections on what it
means to live under today's
historical conditions, Katja Novitskova and Timur Si - Qin present images, objects, and
texts that address our contemporary state
of conflation: the value transitions between the biological and the cultural, from information into matter.
«Based on its plain
meaning and read in context, the term «intercept» in s. 183
of Part VI
of the Criminal Code encompasses the production or seizure
of historical text messages stored by a service provider.»