Abstract
The starting point of the article is a triple crisis of the traditional historical exegesis of the OT. Proposed is a "theory of exegesis" which offers a basis for transformations of traditional questions and methods and which offers "interfaces" for both, the integration of recent trends of literary sciences and the dialog with non-academic, contextual approaches. The (biblical) text is basically understood as an "aesthetic subject" in order to stress that the interrelation between the text and its readers proceeds from the productive encounter between both. As "co-ordinates" of the theory function U. Eco's three "intentions of interpretation" and their relations: the "intentio operis" which opens the perspective on descriptive text theories, the "intentio lectoris" which integrates "aesthetics of reception" and the "intentio auctoris" which offers the link to the traditional historical-critical exegesis.
Highlights
The starting point of the article is a triple crisis of the traditional historical exegesis of the OT
It is true that in the last 25 years many attempts have been made in the field of OT studies, in the German-speaking countries too, to incorporate into exegesis theoretical approaches and suggestions drawn from the field of non-theological literary, textual and hermeneutical studies
OT exegesis can no longer be viewed exclusively as a "historical" discipline, as has generally been the case ever since Schleiermacher's "Kurzer Darstellung des Theologischen Studiums."[62] In turning to the descriptive perception of the text–the presently existing text too, and above all–as well as to the role of its readers in constituting its meaning, exegesis is in the first instance a literary, an aesthetic discipline
Summary
The starting point of these reflections is what seems to me an evident crisis of orientation in Old Testament exegetical studies in Europe, and especially in Germany. I should like to go on to carry over the sense of crisis into a description of the situation which can be followed intersubjectively, so as from that point to talk about some fundamental questions in exegetical method which underlie this crisis but which have not been adequately addressed. It is here, in the identification and working out of these fundamental open questions, that I see the theoretical task. The first focus centres on the fact that Old Testament scholarship is no longer confident about its own traditional questions, methods and results, in the sphere of historical criticism This uncertainty shows itself as a loss of consensus about the validity of certain historical explanatory models. If loss of consensus with regard to the texts has to be put down to their inescapable poly-interpretability, and is a regrettable loss only from the perspective of some of their academic recipients? Does exegesis not lay itself open to the reproach of having neglected the fundamental question about its conditions and limitations, and in so doing to have fallen victim to a forgetfulness of theory, even to "an avoidance of theory"? 7
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