The essay considers four selected works that are designed to provide orientation in the confusing discussion of method in NT exegesis. Three critical questions are put to these works: 1) the question of goal and coherence of the procedure(s), 2) the question of the relationship between synchrony and diachrony, and 3) the question of the significance of the empirical author/the empirical addressees for the interpretation of a text. The author argues for a methodological concept that can roughly be summarized as follows: The method does not consist in employing a variety of traditional and new exegetical approaches each with its own aims and presuppositions, but rather it is totally orientated toward determining the meaning and intention of the text in question. The main path toward this goal is the analysis of the text as a complex linguistic sign with regard to its three semiotic dimensions, and this path must be interrupted whenever it is necessary to reconstruct cultural knowledge presupposed by the text in order to continue the analysis. Within this goal-orientated synchronic methodological approach the diachronic question about the text's prehistory can acquire a critical-corrective function and the question about the empirical author/the empirical addressees can acquire a heuristic function.

Enthalten in:
Theologische Literaturzeitung; 2001/Nr.10 Monatsschrift für das gesamte Gebiet der Theologie und Religionswissenschaft (2001)

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Serie / Reihe: Theologische Literaturzeitung

Personen: Reichert, Angelika

Schlagwörter: Literatur Methode Exegese Neues Testament