From: Gail Froese (gfroese@jetstream.net)
Date: Sat Dec 21 1996 - 19:52:02 EST
Hello Somi
I have read your responses on the list with interest. You said, "Interpretation of a text is not a creative enterprise...it is a clarfying one. We are not trying to find something "new". We are looking for what is already there."
This is what I am trying to do as well. As one of my prof's put it, "It is as if we are listening to one side of a telephone conversation." We must try to pick up clues to what the original questions might have been and who the people are that Paul is refering to. My particular interest is in the first two chapters of Colossians and in particular, Paul's use of the "stoicheia tou kosmou". In Col 2:8 Paul makes it clear that he is contrasting two methodologies; one 'kata ta stoicheia tou kosmou' and the other 'kata Christou'. Are these simply the "ABC's" of the world (philosophical assumptions that the unconverted live by) or are they a bit more concrete than that.
I would suggest that a merely grammatical exegesis of the text does not give us definative answers. It is only when we look at the historical context, that is to say the "Sitz im Liben" (pardon my poor German) that we can make some of these judgments.
I hope that you are not confusing my use of 'historical setting' with 'historical/critcal method'. I think there is a distinct difference. Each has its own distinct contribution to make to our understanding of a text.
Alas, having said that I fear that our conversation is leaving the realms of Greek grammer and going out into the wider realms of interpretation.
Dan Froese
Pastor, Salmon Arm, BC
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.4 : Sat Apr 20 2002 - 15:38:00 EDT