The Reader,
and the Morality
of Literary Knowledge
Is There a
Meaning
in This
Text?
Kevin J. Vanhoozer
Is There a Meaning in This Text?
Copyright © 1998 by Kevin J. Vanhoozer
Requests for information should be addressed to:
Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49530
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Vanhoozer, Kevin J.
Is there a meaning in this text?: the Bible, the reader, and the morality of literary knowledge / Kevin J. Vanhoozer.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN: 0-310-21156-5 (hardcover: alk. paper)
1. Bible—Hermeneutics. 2. Hermeneutics. I. Title.
BS 476.V34 1998
220.6’01—dc21 98–12627
All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible: New International Version®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other—except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher.
scholar, teacher, mentor, friend
INTRODUCTION: Theology and Literary Theory
1. Faith Seeking Textual Understanding
Three parables on reading and reflection
Philosophy and literary theory: from Plato to postmodernity
Meaning and interpretation: the morality of literary knowledge
The three ages of criticism: the plan of the book
PART ONE: Undoing Interpretation: Authority, Allegory, Anarchy
2. Undoing the Author: Authority and Intentionality
Authorship and authority: the birth of the “author”
Undoing the author’s authority
Undoing the author’s intention
3. Undoing the Book: Textuality and Indeterminacy
Meaning in Antioch and Alexandria
Textual indeterminacy: the rule of metaphor
4. Undoing the Reader: Contextuality and Ideology
The aims of reading: literary knowledge and human interests
Power reading and the politics of canon
The ethics of undoing: the “new morality” of knowledge
PART TWO: Redoing Interpretation: Agency, Action, Affect
5. Resurrecting the Author: Meaning As Communicative Action
The physics of promising: from codes to communion
Dissenting voices: speech rehabilitation
The “what” of meaning: texts as communicative acts
The “who” of meaning: authors as communicative agents
Communicative action and the author’s intention
Meaning and significance redivivus
6. Redeeming the Text: The Rationality of Literary Acts
Belief in meaning as properly basic: the nature of literary knowledge
The conflict of interpretations: the problem of literary knowledge
How to describe communicative acts: the norm of literary knowledge
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About Is There a Meaning in This Text?: The Bible, the Reader, and the Morality of Literary KnowledgeIs There a Meaning in This Text? guides the student toward greater confidence in the authority, clarity, and relevance of Scripture, and a well-reasoned expectation to understand accurately the message of the Bible. This volume is a comprehensive and creative analysis of current debates over biblical hermeneutics that draws on interdisciplinary resources, all coordinated by Christian theology. It makes a significant contribution to biblical interpretation that will be of interest to readers in a number of fields. The intention of the book is to revitalize and enlarge the concept of author-oriented interpretation and to restore confidence that readers of the Bible can reach understanding. The result is a major challenge to the central assumptions of postmodern biblical scholarship and a constructive alternative proposal—an Augustinian hermeneutic—that reinvigorates the notion of biblical authority and finds a new exegetical practice that recognizes the importance of both the reader’s situation and the literal sense. |
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