Hermeneutics Linguistics And The Bible

How do texts acquire meaning? How is the meaning communicated to the reader? The task of effective biblical interpretation begins with linguistics. In this introductory text on the use of linguistics in biblical interpretation, Peter Cotterell and Max Turner focus on the concept of meaning, the significance of author, text and reader, and the use of discourse analysis.

We rarely think about the way languages work because communicating in our native tongue comes so naturally to us. The Bible was written in ancient Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek--languages no modern reader can claim to have a native understanding of. A better understanding of how language works should help us understand the Bible better as we seek to discern the original intent and meaning of each biblical author. In this book, you will get a basic introduction to the field of linguistics--its history, its key concepts, its major schools of thought, and how its insights can shed light on various problems in biblical Hebrew and Greek. Numerous examples illustrate linguistic concepts, and technical terminology is clearly defined. Learn how the study of language can enhance your Bible study.

The volume presents Stanley E. Porter's considered thoughts and reflections on key questions of meaning and context, addressing the problems of biblical interpretation and how a close collaboration between hermeneutics and linguistics can help to solve them. The chapters display Porter's work in both fields, examining how hermeneutics functions as a field in modern biblical studies, and how the quest for meaning in biblical texts is underpinned by the study of linguistics. The volume focuses on context for understanding the meanings of biblical texts. Porter suggests that linguists can learn more from the philosophical questions around meaning that hermeneutics apply in their study of biblical texts, and that there is more fruitful work to be done in the field of hermeneutics using insights from linguistics.

In 2016, the Centre for Biblical Linguistics, Translation, and Exegesis (CBLTE), a research center located at McMaster Divinity College, hosted the annual Bingham Colloquium. Scholars from around North America were invited to participate in a collegial and collaborative dialogue on what is currently happening (or could happen) at the intersection of linguistics and biblical studies, particularly in regards to the linguistic study of biblical languages, their translation, and the way that linguistic methods can contribute to the interpretation of the biblical texts. This volume of essays publishes many of the presentations that took place at the Colloquium.

The volume presents Stanley E. Porter's considered thoughts and reflections on key questions of meaning and context, addressing the problems of biblical interpretation and how a close collaboration between hermeneutics and linguistics can help to solve them. The chapters display Porter's work in both fields, examining how hermeneutics functions as a field in modern biblical studies, and how the quest for meaning in biblical texts is underpinned by the study of linguistics. The volume focuses on context for understanding the meanings of biblical texts. Porter suggests that linguists can learn more from the philosophical questions around meaning that hermeneutics apply in their study of biblical texts, and that there is more fruitful work to be done in the field of hermeneutics using insights from linguistics.

Navigating through different realist and nominalist traditions, Timo Eskola suggests that signs are about conditions and functions and participate in a web of relations. Questioning Derridean poststructuralism, the author reinstates Benveniste’s hermeneutics of enunciation and suggests a new approach to metatheology.

In this rich and creative volume the importance of linguistic issues for biblical interpretation is analyzed, the challenge of postmodernism is explored, and some of the most creative recent developments are assessed and updated.

Drawing on the insights of functional grammar and cognitive semantics, this book offers a detailed linguistic analysis of Job 12-14 and a fresh exegetical reading of Job's longest and central speech in the book.