Abstract
Focusing on semantics and semiotics, this article will suggest new and renewed approaches to studying the construction of New Testament theology. First, the relation between Saussure and Peirce will be analyzed because the interpretation of their relationship is crucial for understanding the process of signification. A critical stance will be taken towards Derrida and Eco’s interpretation of signification and towards deconstruction. Applying Benveniste’s development of Saussure’s semantics will introduce a discursive theory. Linguistic signs are not simply linguistic units as such. A sign is about conditions and functions. A sign as a role is a manifestation of participation. For anything to serve as a sign entails participation in a web of relations, participation in a network of meanings, and adoption of a set of rules. In the act of encoding there are elements that resist the free selection of components in encoding, such as narratives and metaphors. Therefore, they also become a means of appropriation: the construction of the sentence is not spontaneous but constrained. When, for instance, the metanarrative of enthronement directs the construction of a Christological statement, the basic theme dominates the process and becomes compelling for the ancient author.
Highlights
Semiotics, while gaining only periodic popularity and only among rather specialized scholars is, the main explanative factor behind most of the recent trends in New Testament interpretation
As we take an interest in semiotics, we must and need commit ourselves to serious work on many fundamental issues concerning the nature of language
How can a metanarrative control and guide the construction of theological statements in the New Testament? What kind of discursive resistance can we decipher in the essential theological descriptions that can be considered basic for the entirety of New Testament theology? The basic claim of this essay is that since narrative is an epistemological factor, several soteriological and Christological presentations revolve around certain topoi, motifs and themes which together provide materials for both simple narratives and large metanarratives
Summary
While gaining only periodic popularity and only among rather specialized scholars is, the main explanative factor behind most of the recent trends in New Testament interpretation. Signification proper, denotation in the scheme mentioned above, which falls in the category of breadth, are in the world of semiosis This explains how concepts grow and, in accordance with what Peirce says about interpretants, through semiosis a “translation” takes place and “the meaning of a sign is the sign it has to be translated into” (CP 4.132). Considering similarities between Saussure and Peirce, the result is surprising Even in their different contexts they both speak of a bipartite linguistic sign. Derrida’s importance stems from his claim to have learned both from Saussure and Peirce He does not recognize the distinction between langue and parole but maintains that language is merely a self-referential system of signs where words refer only to other words.
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