From: geoff@tyger.Eng.Sun.COM (Geoff Arnold @ Sun BOS - R.H. coast near the top)
Newsgroups: alt.atheism
Subject: Re: SURVEY <-- Please Read This One!
Date: 25 Aug 92 17:02:26 GMT
Organization: SunSelect
NNTP-Posting-Host: tyger.east.sun.com

[By the way, Jim, your quoting style - indenting your stuff
by a tab or so - is really confusing and annoying, given that
most people indent the previous material. Could you think about
switching around?]

Quoth jbrown@doc.bmd.trw.com (in <1992Aug25.082916.311@doc.bmd.trw.com>):
#    I believe that the Bible is a diverse collection of literature
#    that contains the following literary devices: literalism, allegory,
#    metaphor, parables, prophecy, and poetry.  (Not intended to be
#    an exhaustive list.)
#
#    When the Bible is written literally, I take a literal meaning.
#    When it is allegorical, I take an allegorical meaning.
#    When it uses metaphor, I take a metaphorical meaning.
#    When it records parables, I take an illustrative meaning...[how
#	about a parabolic meaning?  :) ]
#    When it records prophecy, I take a prophetical meaning.
#    When it is poetic, I take a poetical meaning.
#
#    And to pull it all together and decide which is which, I use the
#    principles of hermaneutics for correct contextual interpretation.

Given that Webster defines "hermeneutics" as "the study of the
methodological principles of interpretation [as of the Bible]", I would
say that that last sentence is nonsense. Making the indicated
substitution it reads "I use the principles of the study of the
methodological principles of interpretation for correct contextual
interpretation". In other words, hermeneutics is the study of
principles of interpretation, it is *not* a particular interpretation
model which can be used to categorise Biblical passages. A C compiler
would complain about this as "warning: illegal pointer combination" :-)

Let's charitably assume that you intended to make sense:

Your original sentence clearly indicates that you have a mental
decision model, J (for Jim) which maps elements of the Bible onto
meaning-classes.  Hermeneutics is the study of different decision
models (or "methodological principles of interpretation"). Obviously
there are many such models - for example, mine (G) maps exclusively
onto history, mythology and poetry. If you claim to be a student of
hermeneutics and that you have a usuable model J, you are implying that
you have studied these different models and determined that J is
superior to G, H, I, K, L, etc. What was the decision procedure you
used in making this choice?  Intuition?  Meta-hermeneutics? And if you
used any Biblical elements in arriving at your choice, is this not
irretrievably circular and thus empty? (Since under a different
interpretation, say K, these very Biblical elements might have
a different meaning, or no meaning at all?)

Why not be honest and say that you pick the interpretations that
make you feel most comfortable/least uncomfortable?

Geoff

--
Geoff Arnold, PC-NFS architect, Sun Select. (geoff.arnold@East.Sun.COM)
-----------
News software that enforces a four-line .signature limit is responsible for
the fact that these postings just go on and on and on and seem to end in mid-