THE RETURN OF ORAL HERMENEUTICS (original) (raw)
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Asian Journal of Pentecostal Studies and APTS Press, 2021
Tom Steffen and William Bjoraker offer oral hermeneutics, complementary to textual hermeneutics, that is both defensible in approach and instructive in demonstration. As their volume title indicates in The Return of Oral Hermeneutics, the central thesis of the book explicitly states that: “This book builds the case for the return of oral hermeneutics to better understand, interpret, and teach the Bible (‘the book’) in the twenty-first century at home and abroad, using oral means” (xvii). Hence, this well researched academic work identifies the fundamental question that they are attempting to answer in the pages of their book. “Why is it important to know and practice oral hermeneutics in order to ascertain and communicate biblical meaning?” (xxiii) Thequick answer is notable in the words of the subtitle: As Good Today as It Was for the Hebrew Bible and First-Century Christianity. The case for oral hermeneutics that was familiar across the ancient socio-cultural context in the world behind the text of the Old and New Testaments should still be beneficial for us today.
Orality and the Function of Written Texts in the World of the New Testament
New Testament scholarship generally acknowledges orality as an important stage in the transmission of the early Christian traditions. However, the approach has largely ignored the influence of orality on transmission of early written Christian texts. This paper will argue that by examining written texts in the light of anthropological and historical research on orality a more satisfactory description of the social setting of written documents is formed which accommodates both oral and literate textual transmission. The paper will use anthropological and historical approaches to argue that the social discourse context of the New Testament literature comprises both oral and written modes. Theoretical models and primary sources will provide evidence that, within the social context of early New Testament textual transmission, elements of an oral mindset were retained. The implications of this will be addressed by a discussion of meta-literate access to written texts (social identity, 'hereness', metonymy, metempsychosis and apotropaism) and its effect on the function and reception of early Christian literature. Such research is crucial to our understanding of why New Testament texts adopted the written form and how they were transmitted. It challenges New Testament researchers to consider that, within early Christianity, the meta-literate function of its written texts were as important, if not at times more important, than their actual written content.
Is it Time for The Return of Oral Hermeneutics?
Tom Steffen, 2022
The central question this chapter attempts to answer is, why is it important to know and practice oral hermeneutics in interpreting and communicating biblical meaning of a Bible story?
applying those rules. (Page 16) 2. Virkler defined General Hermeneutics as the study of those rules that govern interpretation of the entire biblical text. It includes the topics of historicalcultural, contextual, lexical -syntactical and theological analyses. (Page 16) 3. Virkler defined Special Hermeneutics as the study of those rules that apply to specific genres, such as parables, allegories, types, and prophecy. (Page 16) 2. How does Virkler define: textual criticism, historical criticism, exegesis, biblical theology, systematic theology? 1. Virkler defined Textual Criticism: As sometimes referred to as lower criticism. Textual criticism is the attempt to ascertain the original wording of a text. Textual criticism is needed because we have no original manuscripts, only many copies of the originals and these copies have variations among them. (Page 17)
Engaging Biblical Text in Indic Hermeneutical Traditions
Doon Theological Journal, 18/2 (2021): 5-20.
In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, waves of varied hermeneutical methods influenced biblical discourse and steered its direction towards the secular philosophical trends of the time, which were helpful, in many ways, for the interpretation of the Bible. However, they deprived the sacred book of its particular place, power, and voice. The modernist interpreters preposterously claimed objectivity, universality, and scientific worth for their methodologies. This trend persisted similarly among Indian Bible interpreters who sought to read and hear the message of the Bible in their native social and cultural context. They failed to engage self-critically with their method and imported blindly their native religious-cultural biases into the interpretation. Thus, the author proposes a Transcultural Hybrid Biblical Hermeneutic (THBH) as a balanced, self-critical, and realistic interpretive framework to hear the core biblical message in the native tone and language.
Journal of Biblical Literature, 2017
A theory owing to the legacy of these pioneering scholars has been that of the "great divide" that contrasts oral cultures and literate ones to the extent that a chasm between them is envisioned. That is, the orality affected only preliterary traditions and had no effect on traditions once they reached written form. This great-divide theory has triggered significant debate over the years, particularly regarding theories of the development of cultures and civilization. 3 The writings of the Toronto school led to the dominance of this theory, even though among these pioneering scholars there was no unanimity regarding its existence or its putative "greatness. " Some revisionist work in the area of orality and literacy has contested the great-divide theory. One area in which this has been vigorously argued is in the area of compositional styles, with many emphasizing continuity between oral and literate cultures and suggesting that oral traditions continued to exist alongside and to interact with literate traditions. 4 Another contested claim concerns the assertion that oral and written cultures were almost universally different, implying not only cultural differences but the psychological superiority of the latter. 5 In this vein, some 2 Milman Parry, L' épithète traditionnelle dans Homère: Essai sur un problème de style homé rique