Contribution To Hermeneutics Research Articles

Prescriptive Theology for the Local Church: Tite Tiénou's Hermeneutical Contributions to African Evangelical Theology

This article analyses the hermeneutical contributions of Tite Tiénou, a leading figure in African evangelicalism. In the academic literature, African evangelical theology has often been characterised as a ‘biblicist’ form of theologising that does not account for the hermeneutical questions that arise from the encounter between the Christian message and African contexts. This negative perception seems to be based on the radical line of Byang Kato, the first African General Secretary of the Association of Evangelicals in Africa. This article argues that Tiénou, in his hermeneutical works, endeavours to develop what he calls a “third way” between academic and popular theologies. This third way honours Kato's theological legacy, yet moves beyond it to seriously addresses the challenges raised by African inculturation theologians. Characteristic of Tiénou's contribution is that he foregrounds the local Christian community, as both the source and the addressee of theology.

The Hermeneutics of Islamic Law in Reviewing Changes to the Minimum Age for Marriage

This research aims to explore the perspective of Islamic legal hermeneutics in addressing the issue of changing the minimum age of marriage. The minimum age of marriage is a controversial issue that relates to the protection of children's rights, gender equality, and the interpretation of Islamic legal texts. This study employs a hermeneutical approach as a theoretical framework to understand the interpretation of Islamic law regarding the change in the minimum age of marriage. The research also involves an analysis of the changing societal views on the minimum age of marriage. In some cases, societal perspectives have evolved with changing times and increased awareness of the protection of women's rights. Therefore, this study attempts to identify arguments that support or oppose the change in the minimum age of marriage from the perspective of Islamic law. The results of this research are expected to provide deeper insights into the interpretation of Islamic law regarding the minimum age of marriage and its implications for efforts to protect women's rights and bring about social change within Muslim societies. By understanding the contribution of hermeneutics in interpreting Islamic law, it is hoped that more directed efforts can be made in formulating policies that align with the principles of Islamic law and humanitarian values

From Adolescence to Early Adulthood: The Maturation of Theological Interpretation in the Work of R. W. L. Moberly and Darren Sarisky

Abstract The recent books of exegete R. W. L. Moberly (The God of the Old Testament) and theologian Darren Sarisky (Reading the Bible Theologically) provide an opportunity for taking stock of the “theological interpretation of Scripture” (hereafter TIS). Contemplating the broad hermeneutical commonalities of these two scholars, the present article will suggest that their books represent a moderate, mainstream version of TIS that is maturing out of adolescence into early adulthood. Supporting this suggestion will involve, first, setting the historical scene; second, sketching the two books’ hermeneutical contributions; and third, sharing some questions about sustaining the heritage that some TIS advocates seek to recover.

Sustainability Hermeneutics

Abstract Ecological issues are not just planet-related issues; they are also people-related issues, and vice versa, as the UN’s 2030 Agenda implies. Hence, ecological aspects in biblical studies should also be studied in relation to social justice, whether this be liberation from oppression, indigenous rights, postcolonialism/neo-colonialism, gender, health, poverty or other. I propose sustainability hermeneutics as the name of an approach which combines perspectives on the environment (ecology), equity (society) and economy. In this article, I emphasise theoretical aspects in developing this new approach, as I discuss different definitions of sustainability and aspects of sustainability theory and show how these may be applied to hermeneutics. I clarify the aims and contributions of sustainability hermeneutics and suggest possible methods and potential material. As an illustration, I present a case study of sustainability hermeneutics applied to a biblical text.

Faith in the Nominalistic Age? The Possible Theological Contribution of Hermeneutics

This paper inquires about the defensibility of spiritual faith in this Nominalistic age, i.e., an age when all reality is reduced to scientifically ascertainable matter and all spiritual realities are deemed to be irreal. This Nominalistic worldview was developed in the late Middle Ages and became one of the major presuppositions of Modernity. It has made it ever more difficult to defend the legitimacy of faith and its objects. It also played an important, albeit seldom recognized, role in the emergence of Hermeneutical thought in the 20th Century. In his strong, if also seldom carefully studied, interpretation of Heidegger’s philosophy, Gadamer saw in the Nominalism of Modernity one of the main challenges to which Heidegger’s thinking wished to respond: the hegemony of the Nominalistic understanding of being would have led to the Nihilism of our technological Age and made the experience of the Divine unthinkable. After recalling the outlines of this interpretation and of the meaning of Nominalism itself, this paper argues that this Nominalism was also one of the main challenges Gadamer wanted to overcome with his Hermeneutics. It discusses how Hermeneutics strives to overcome this Nominalism by calling into question the monopoly of scientific truth (an effort summed up in the title “Truth and Method”) and through its renewed understanding of language as the presentation of Being itself, which goes hand in hand with the rediscovery of the Platonic metaphysics of the Beautiful. Hermeneutics thus shows how something like faith is defensible and thus makes an important theological and metaphysical contribution.

God, an Event of Proximity, Narrated in Luke 10:25–37

The so-called “phenomenological turn” proposes a return to the world of lived experience, overcoming the rigidity of classical ontology. In this sense, theology also proposes to speak of God migrating from the world of the concept to life itself. Keeping in mind, then, that God gives himself in history as a Mystery of infinite love, it is necessary to find a new category that can express him, being faithful to the biblical testimony. The category chosen is “event,” as proposed by Claude Romano, who understands the event (happening) as the irruption of the unexpected that significantly affects everything that comes into contact with it. The parable of the Samaritan (Luke 10:25–37) reveals God as an event of loving proximity, who mercifully bursts in through the actions of a Samaritan who saves the life of a seriously wounded man. The confirmation of the possibility of using the category “event” to speak of God is given only by means of a narrative method, for which we make use of the hermeneutical contributions of A. Wénin, who makes narrative the most appropriate language to express God’s traits, in this case, his merciful closeness.

Debriefing hermeneutics for a balanced reading of the biblical text

In this study, it is argued that the trust of previous (and existing) hermeneutical approaches of promoting ancient biblical texts as applicable to the everyday life of contemporary readers is not only imaginable but also too ambitious. The Hebrew Bible emerged from an Israelite cultural context, which neither speaks to nor deliberates on issues concerning the African cultural contexts. The present essay utilises a narrative approach comprising three main overtures. Firstly, some examples of previous contributions on hermeneutics will be discussed. Secondly, this study interrogates the legitimacy of employing African biblical hermeneutics that utilises ancient Jewish texts as applicable to African societies today. Thirdly and finally, the study will critically appraise for a balanced reading of the biblical text.Contribution: The present study aims at engaging (debriefing) existing hermeneutical contributions towards proposing a balanced reading of the biblical text. In order to achieve that goal, the study engages into a dialogue following hermeneutical approaches, which are popular amongst most African scholars, namely African biblical hermeneutics, black biblical hermeneutics, contextual biblical hermeneutics, feminist hermeneutics and oral hermeneutics.

Understanding of source code in language: Contribution of philosophical hermeneutics to the critical code studies

AbstractThe article discusses the attempt to understand a source code under the conception of philosophical hermeneutics guided by language. Based on a confrontation between H.-G. Gadamer’s and Paul Ricoeur’s philosophy, our main goal would be searching for the essence of the source code in language. Thus, a closer look is taken into cultural symbols, natural language, and artificial languages. Especially, there would be discussed the problem of abstraction, linguistic community, self-forgetfulness, vitality of formal languages, and display of individuality. This is where the cultural layer of the code can be traced, hence we may find our world-view verbal in nature. In line with the Critical Code Studies approach, in this article, the source code is treated as text. Because of its complexity, the issue should be studied within philosophical inquiry and computer science knowledge. Hence, the perspective developed here goes back to origins and provides a philosophical foundation for Critical Code Studies thinking. The article presents academics with a philosophical challenge: how to understand the source code with an adaptation of a philosophy rejecting artificiality. With philosophical reflection, the source code gains additional meaning and experiences increase in being. Understanding happens in language, which realizes as discourse.

Faith, Religion, and Spirituality: A Phenomenological and Hermeneutic Contribution to Parsing the Distinctions

Religion and spirituality are contested terms in the fields of Religious Studies, Theology, Sociology or Anthropology of Religion, and other areas, and the notion of faith has often been abandoned altogether. The present article attempts to make a distinctly philosophical contribution to this debate by employing phenomenological parameters, as they are articulated in the work of Martin Heidegger, for proposing distinctions between faith, religion, and spirituality. It then goes on to “fill” these structural distinctions in more detail with hermeneutic content by drawing on Paul Ricœur’s work on faith and religion, as well as Johann Michel’s analysis of Ricœur’s account of the self as a “spirituality”. The article thus employs Heidegger’s phenomenological categories and Ricœur’s hermeneutic project in order to think through the possibility of making phenomenological distinctions between personal confession of faith, religious adhesion to a tradition via myth and ritual, and a broader spirituality as a fundamental dimension of the human being.

The Relation of Muslim and Christian Community: Hermeneutic Contribution to Create the Third Space in the Communities

One of the social conflicts caused by the false understanding of religion often occurs, making horizontal and vertical conflicts in social life. Nevertheless, there is a way to resolve the inter-religious conflict called a ‘third space community.’ This article seeks to answer how we should interpret Jesus in two different religious communities (Islam and Christian)? With Martin Buber’s hermeneutic approach to ‘I-Thou,’ this paper describes an understanding of the “term of religions” to interpret each other in the two religious communities. Multicultural communication as a form of interpretation of the “third space” is a middle way to resolve conflicts. Thus, this paper is expected that the understanding of Jesus is not a source of division but rather a limitation of religion, culture, and horizons for its adherents. Referring to Gadamer’s concept, a one-sided understanding will prevent each society (Islam and Christian) from interpreting Jesus. Afterward, this article suggests that the understanding of Jesus let the community fully interpret it.

Rethinking the category of organic intellectual of/by Antonio Gramsci in today's world

The attempt to assess the essential functions and aspects of the intellectual establishment in the modern and contemporary world occupies a prominent place in the social sciences and in the political philosophy of the 20th century. Antonio Gramsci was undoubtedly one of the philosophers who made the most heuristic and hermeneutical contributions, from his revisionist Marxist perspective, to understand intellectuals as leading actors and active political subjects, situated in the dilemma of favoring the preservation of the established order, in the case of traditional intellectuals, or in promoting their radical transformation as a program of action of the so-called organic intellectuals, who dedicate themselves at all times to interpret the needs and aspirations of justice and equity of the time and social space of which they are part, to endow it with concrete political content. Consequently, the objective of this scientific article is to examine the role of the critical intellectual with social commitment in the current complex context, marked by the systemic crisis of the current world order. Methodologically speaking, the document presented here was developed through dialectical hermeneutics and the documentary research technique. The findings obtained allow us to conclude that critical thinking is key to revitalizing democracies.

Revelation as a discourse of language through speech act theory

Systematic theology regards revelation as a divine discourse between God and us. However, it seems that it does not fully explain how God’s divine discourse transforms our life and what implications it has. Therefore, this article suggests investigating ‘revelation as a discourse of language’ in the light of speech act theory (SAT). If we illuminate revelation as a discourse of language as a SAT, the following three hermeneutical contributions to revelation are expected: firstly, revelation is a ‘communicative act’ between God and believer as a ‘discourse of language’ of God; secondly, it shows how the language of revelation bridges the gap between ‘divine language’ and ‘human language’ in terms of revelation as a discourse of language, and thirdly, it confirms how God’s Word (revelation) is real in the lives of believers. Contribution: While this article engages the traditional theological notion of revelation as a discourse of language between God and humans, it argues that reconsidering this notion in the light of speech act theory. It can explain God’s language discourse transforms the lives of believers and the Word (revelation) is fulfilled in their lives.

Construindo sentidos sobre o cuidado em saúde à luz da hermenêutica gadameriana

Uma contribuição relevante da hermenêutica de Hans-Georg Gadamer para o tema do cuidado concentra-se sobre uma ótica que vislumbra as subjetividades que permeiam o adoecimento humano. Dentro desta perspectiva hermenêutica, as pessoas, além de seres biológicos, são também sujeitos de sua própria subjetividade, e como tais, vivenciam a experiência do cuidado a partir de suas próprias lentes afetivo-subjetivas. O presente estudo pretende ser um ensaio de discussão teórica, que intenta a construção de uma discussão que gere novos sentidos para o tema do cuidado em saúde à luz da Hermenêutica Filosófica de Hans-Georg Gadamer. Para tal, foram utilizados textos do próprio Gadamer (1997; 2002; 2011), assim como publicações de autores que trabalham a temática a partir do mesmo marco teórico. Para Gadamer (1997), os conhecimentos técnicos são obtidos através do estudo e da experiência, já sua correta aplicabilidade, somente será alcançada através do contato hermenêutico-experiencial junto a outra pessoa. E nesse sentido, o diálogo parece constituir uma dimensão decisiva para o estabelecimento de uma relação de abertura e igualdade. Além disso, a medicina baseada em evidências simplesmente não é, por si só, suficiente para prestar um cuidado atencioso e pautado nas peculiaridades subjetivas humanas.

Women with cardiopathy in the context of reproductive planning: contributions of phenomenological hermeneutics

ABSTRACT Objective: To analyze the existential movement of women with heart diseases in the context of Reproductive Planning. Method: Qualitative with Heideggerian phenomenological approach. Seventeen participants with heart disease and with recent experience of pregnancy at a reference institution for maternal risk participated in the study, through the phenomenological interview. Results: Two units of meanings emerged in the hermeneutical analysis: To be more attentive and concerned with the treatment because the problem remains the same; Expressing that they don´t want to get pregnant anymore because they´ve reached the limit and to seek planning in doing the tubal ligation. Conclusion and implications for practice: The unveiling of the existential movement made it possible to understand that, although the participants felt secure with the institutional follow-up of high-risk pregnancies, this proved to be insufficient with regard to Reproductive Planning. It stands out the necessary consideration by nurses and other health professionals that this planning is an important set of actions to identify and modify risks in women with heart diseases in the perspective of better perinatal outcomes. It is necessary to advance in the comprehension of the subjective aspects of the woman and the couple through the dialogue, besides the permanent education work of the whole team.

“Entre séculos”: para uma abordagem histórico-literária da poesia portuguesa entre o Barroco e a Ilustração

Questionando a aplicabilidade do modelo periodológico das histórias romântica e positivista ao estudo da poesia portuguesa dos sécs. xvii-xviii, este texto pretende indagar sobre novas possibilidades metodológicas surgidas no domínio da teorização contemporânea. Teremos, assim, em consideração um âmbito particular, visando o contexto literário entre Barroco e Ilustração (Bègue, Ruiz Pérez); a que somamos o âmbito geral da historiografia literária contemporânea, no qual se propõem novas abordagens temáticas e modelos alternativos de configuração do sentido (Bourdieu, Greenblatt, Valdés). Em suma, procuramos levar a efeito uma revalorização da literatura setecentista através dos instrumentos da nova história literária. História Literária que, através da assimilação de um conjunto de novas perspetivas (sociológicas e hermenêuticas), se nos afigura como percurso renovado, capaz de responder aos desafios institucionais e críticos que a constituem.

Why talk about Hermeneutics?

Many are the works in Mathematical Education that have analyzes based in the hermeneutics, explicitly or not. However, the elaboration of texts that focus on discussing the philosophical foundations of hermeneutics, understood in different perspectives, is still a demand of this field of knowledge. In order to contribute to this discussion and bring clarification about what is hermeneutic, we wrote this work that approaches it in the perspective of phenomenology, that is, as a philosophy. Starting from different historical conceptions of the term, which has in its roots the synonym of interpreting and translating, we present our understanding of the constitution’s course of philosophical hermeneutics, as an ontology of understanding, that is, a way for the human being to comprehend himself and understand the world. In this sense, we envisage contributions of hermeneutics to the research that themes the Education, since, constantly and interpretative-understanding movement of texts, testimonies, expressions of students and pedagogical practice constantly made in the educational context.

Traços da hermenêutica filosófica na educação em ciências: possibilidades à educação química

O presente trabalho traz algumas aproximações da Hermenêutica Filosófica à Educação Química. Iniciamos trazendo elementos que nos levaram a buscar aportes da Hermenêutica Filosófica à Educação Química dentro do grupo Comunidades Aprendentes em Educação Ambiental Ciências e Matemática (CEAMECIM). Posteriormente, apresentamos contribuições de teóricos que fizeram esta aproximação. Finalizamos trazendo autores que se concentraram em um olhar hermenêutico à Química em duas revistas de Filosofia da Química: Foundations of Chemistry e Hyle – International Journal for the Philosophy of Chemistry. Este encontro – Hermenêutica e Educação Química – pode contribuir para compreendermos a Química que se mostra em nossa prática docente a partir de um olhar filosófico aberto às possibilidades hermenêuticas do diálogo, da tradição histórica da linguagem, para além de seu caráter instrumental, e da estética na Educação Química.

Theological imagination as hermeneutical device: Exploring the hermeneutical contribution of an imaginal engagement with the text

In the past, biblical scholarship has neglected the hermeneutical contribution that an imaginal engagement with the text may make. The author’s aim in this article was to develop theological imagination as a hermeneutical device. This was done by briefly considering the concurrence in the hermeneutic contributions of three interpreters of biblical texts, with specific regard to their understanding of biblical imagination. These were Walter Brueggemann, Paul Ricoeur and Ignatius of Loyola. Their hermeneutical contributions concur in their understanding of a biblically informed imagination, and it is specifically this aspect of the concurrence of their thought that was explored. An illustration from Proverbs 14:27, which draws on the metaphor and biblical motif of the fountain or source of life, was put forward to demonstrate how the concurrence in the contributions of these biblical interpreters may influence an imaginal engagement with the text.Keywords: Old Testament; Proverbs; Hermeneutics; The fear of the Lord/Yahweh; Walter Brueggemann; Paul Ricoeur; Ignatius of Loyola; Imaginal engagement

O estatuto da linguagem no romance Caetés

This paper aims to investigate the status of language in the novel Caetes by Graciliano Ramos, through an analysis of the failure on writing experienced by the character Joao Valerio. The meaning of Caetes Indians, their wild nature, and the revealing role of the human condition will be highlighted. For that, the analysis and interpretation of the novel also counts with the theoretical contribution of philosophical hermeneutics.

Education as Synesis: A Hermeneutical Contribution to the Pedagogical Theory of Educational Practice

Synesis, a category mentioned by Aristotle in the sixth book of his Nicomachean Ethics, is, along with phronesis, a fundamental concept of ethics as a human reflection on moral action. Through a hermeneutical methodological approach, this paper will demonstrate how synesis, a concept scarcely studied by scholars in the context of pedagogy and philosophy of education, represents a basic category both of pedagogical epistemology and educational practice, upon which one needs to reflect in order to understand the function and meaning of education and learning in a human perspective.