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Exegesis ( ; from the Ancient Greek ἐξήγησις, from ἐξηγεῖσθαι, "to lead out") is a critical explanation or interpretation of a text. The term is traditionally applied to the interpretation of Bible works. In modern usage, exegesis can involve critical interpretations of virtually any text, including not just religious texts but also philosophy, literature, or virtually any other genre of writing. The phrase Biblical exegesis can be used to distinguish studies of the Bible from other critical textual explanations.
Textual criticism investigates the history and origins of the text, but exegesis may include the study of the historical and cultural backgrounds of the author, text, and original audience. Other analyses include classification of the type of presented in the text and analysis of grammar and syntax features in the text itself.
As with the majority of the thousands of texts from the ancient Near East that have survived to the present day, Mesopotamian text commentaries are written on clay tablets in cuneiform script. Text commentaries are written in the East Semitic language of Akkadian, but due to the influence of lexical lists written in Sumerian language on cuneiform scholarship, they often contain Sumerian words or phrases as well.
Cuneiform commentaries are important because they provide information about Mesopotamian languages and culture that are not available elsewhere in the cuneiform record. To give but one example, the pronunciation of the cryptically written name of Gilgamesh, the hero of the Epic of Gilgamesh, was discovered in a cuneiform commentary on a medical text. However, the significance of cuneiform commentaries extends beyond the light they shed on specific details of Mesopotamian civilization. They shed light on what the concerns of the Mesopotamian literate elite were when they read some of the most widely studied texts in the Mesopotamian intellectual tradition, a perspective that is important for "seeing things their way." Finally, cuneiform commentaries are also the earliest examples of textual interpretation. It has been repeatedly argued that they influenced rabbinical exegesis.See Akkadian Commentaries and Early Hebrew Exegesis
The publication and interpretation of these texts began in the mid-19th century, with the discovery of the royal Assyrian libraries at Nineveh, from which ca. 454 text commentaries have been recovered. The study of cuneiform commentaries is, however, far from complete. It is the subject of on-going research by the small, international community of scholars who specialize in the field of Assyriology.
The form of each book may be identical or allow for variations in methodology among the many authors who collaborate to write a full commentary. Each book's commentary generally consists of a background and introductory section, followed by detailed commentary of the book pericope-by-pericope or verse-by-verse. Before the 20th century, a commentary would be written by a sole author, but in the recent period, a publishing board will commission a team of scholars to write a commentary, with each volume being divided out among them.
A single commentary will generally attempt to give a coherent and unified view on the Bible as a whole, for example, from a Catholic or Reformed (Calvinist) perspective, or a commentary that focuses on textual criticism or historical criticism from a secular point of view. However, each volume will inevitably lean toward the personal emphasis bias of its author, and within any commentaries there may be great variety in the depth, accuracy, and critical or theological strength of each volume.
The doctrine of four senses of Scripture is a concept used in biblical hermeneutics.Bruce Corley, Steve Lemke, Grant Lovejoy, Biblical Hermeneutics: A Comprehensive Introduction to Interpreting Scripture, B&H Publishing Group, USA, 2002, p. 102 In the 3rd century, the theologian Origen, a graduate of Catechetical School of Alexandria, formulated the principle of the three senses of Scripture (literal, moral and spiritual) from the Jewish method of interpretation (midrash) used by Paul of Tarsus in Epistle to the Galatians chapter 4.Kevin J. Vanhoozer, Dictionary for Theological Interpretation of the Bible, Baker Academic, USA, 2005, p. 283-284
The historical-grammatical method is a Christian hermeneutical method that strives to discover the Biblical author's original intended meaning in the text. It is the primary method of interpretation for many conservative Protestant exegetes who reject the historical-critical method to various degrees (from the complete rejection of historical criticism of some fundamentalist Protestants to the moderated acceptance of it in the Catholic Church since Pope Pius XII),The Biblical Commission's Document "The Interpretation of the Bible in the Church" Text and Commentary; ed. Joseph A. Fitzmyer; Subsidia Biblica 18; Rome: Editrice Pontificio Istituto Bibllico, 1995. See esp. p. 26, "The historical-critical method is the indispensable method for the scientific study of the meaning of ancient texts." in contrast to the overwhelming reliance on historical-critical interpretation, often to the exclusion of all other hermeneutics, in liberal Christianity.
Historical criticism, also known as the historical-critical method or higher criticism, is a branch of literary criticism that investigates the origins of ancient texts in order to understand "the world behind the text". This is done to discover the text's primitive or original meaning in its original historical context and its literal sense.
Revealed exegesis considers that the Holy Spirit inspired the authors of the scriptural texts, and so the words of those texts convey a divine revelation. In this view of exegesis, the principle of sensus plenior applies—that because of its divine authorship, the Bible has a "fuller meaning" than its human authors intended or could have foreseen.
Rational exegesis bases its operation on the idea that the authors have their own inspiration (in this sense, synonymous with artistic inspiration), so their works are completely and utterly a product of the social environment and human intelligence of their authors.
Robert A. Traina's book Methodical Bible Study is an example of Protestant Christian exegesis.
How little it was known or recognized may be seen from the admission of Kahana ben Tahlifa, a Babylonian Amoraim of the fourth century, that while at 18 years of age, he had already learned the whole Mishnah, he had only heard of that principle a great many years later ( Shabbat 63a). Kahana's admission is characteristic of the centuries following the final redaction of the Talmud. The primary meaning is no longer considered, but it is becoming more and more fashionable to interpret the text according to its meaning in traditional literature. The ability and even the desire for original investigation of the text succumbed to the overwhelming authority of the Midrash.
It was, therefore, providential that, just at the time when the Midrash was paramount, the close study of the text of the Hebrew Bible, at least in one direction, was pursued with rare energy and perseverance by the Masorites, who set themselves to preserving and transmitting the pronunciation and correct reading of the text.
The reading of the biblical text, which was combined with that of the Targum, widened the knowledge of the scholars learned in the first division of the national science. The scribes found the material for their discourses, which formed a part of the synagogue service, in the second division of the several branches of the tradition. The Aggadah, the third of these branches, was the source material for the sermon.
At Australian and British universities, the exegesis forms part of the required work for fine arts, including creative-writing . A scholarly text accompanies a creative work, such as a film, novel, poetry or other artistic output by the PhD candidate. Together, the two elements form the candidate's research thesis.
Taking his bearings from his study of Maimonides and Al-Farabi, and pointing further back to Plato's discussion of writing as contained in the Phaedrus, Strauss proposed that the classical and medieval art of esoteric writing is the proper medium for philosophic learning: rather than displaying philosophers' thoughts superficially, classical and medieval philosophical texts guide their readers in thinking and learning independently of imparted knowledge. Thus, Strauss agrees with the Socrates of the Phaedrus, where the Greek indicates that, insofar as writing does not respond when questioned, good writing provokes questions in the reader—questions that orient the reader towards an understanding of problems the author thought about with utmost seriousness. Strauss thus, in Persecution and the Art of Writing, presents Maimonides "as a closet nonbeliever obfuscating his message for political reasons".Michael Paley and Jacob J. Staub in Jewish Philosophy: Medieval and Modern, printed in The Schocken Guide to Jewish Books (1992) p. 215.
Strauss's hermeneutical argumentWinfried Schröder (ed.), Reading between the lines – Leo Strauss and the history of early modern philosophy, Walter de Gruyter, 2015, p. 39, "According to Robert Hunt, 'the Straussian hermeneutic ... sees the course of intellectual history as an ongoing conversation about important philosophical questions'."—rearticulated throughout his subsequent writings (most notably in The City and Man 1964)—is that, before the 19th century, Western scholars commonly understood that philosophical writing is not at home in any polity, no matter how liberal. Insofar as it questions conventional wisdom at its roots, philosophy must guard itself especially against those readers who believe themselves authoritative, wise, and liberal defenders of the status quo. In questioning established opinions, or in investigating the principles of morality, philosophers of old found it necessary to convey their messages in an oblique manner. Their "art of writing" was the art of esoteric communication. This was especially apparent in medieval times when heterodox political thinkers wrote under the threat of the Inquisition or comparably obtuse tribunals.
Strauss's argument is not that the medieval writers he studies reserved one exoteric meaning for the many (hoi polloi) and an esoteric, hidden one for the few (hoi oligoi), but that, through rhetorical stratagems including self-contradiction and hyperboles, these writers succeeded in conveying their proper meaning at the tacit heart of their writings—a heart or message irreducible to "the letter" or historical dimension of texts.
Explicitly following Gotthold Ephraim Lessing's lead, Strauss indicates that medieval political philosophers, no less than their ancient counterparts, carefully adapted their wording to the dominant moral views of their time, lest their writings be condemned as heretical or unjust, not by "the many" (who did not read), but by those "few" whom the many regarded as the most righteous guardians of morality. It was precisely these righteous personalities who would be most inclined to persecute/ostracize anyone who was in the business of exposing the noble or great lie upon which the authority of the few over the many stands or falls. Jew and Philosopher: The Return to Maimonides in the Jewish Thought of Leo Strauss p. 25
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