Semeia 41: Speech Act Theory and Biblical Criticism
Overview
Semeia is an experimental journal devoted to the exploration of new and emergent areas and methods of biblical criticism. Studies employing the methods, models, and findings of linguistics, folklore studies, contemporary literary criticism, structuralism, social anthropology, and other such disciplines and approaches, are invited. Although experimental in both form and content, Semeia proposes to publish work that reflects a well defined methodology that is appropriate to the material being interpreted.
- Key perspectives on biblical criticism
- Includes bibliographies and index
Top Highlights
“In brief, using a speech act theory approach means that when studying religious acts and religious discourses, the primary concern should be to account for the subjectivity of the religious practitioners or of the authors of a religious text.” (Page 95)
“The general hermeneutical problem might be stated in simple terms: Historical criticism detaches the past from present concerns in order to prevent the distinctive, unique, and even alien features of previous historical periods from being ignored or distorted by the passion to make the past relevant to present circumstances. But the gap that is left between the present and past becomes so immense that the significance of both is threatened by the sea of relativity. Theology, on the other hand, tends to seek within the transitory events of the past either eternal truths, or Geschichtsanchauungen, or significance for the present in some other form, to the extent that the historical uniqueness of the past is eroded and some transhistorical truth is imposed on the living and changing present.” (Page 45)
“Pratt’s approach would thus suggest that Biblical narrative should be analyzed more in terms of the function served by the telling or ‘displaying’ of these texts in the religious life of the community, and less attention given to establishing whether they are history, fiction, or some combination of the two.” (Page 7)
“Speech act theory underscores that the propositional content should not be viewed as the total meaning of an utterance; one also needs to account for its illocutionary point and its illocutionary force (Searle, 1979 2–3).” (Page 91)
- Martin Buss
- Robert Detweiler
- Ronald Grimes
- Michael Hancher
- Charles Jarrett
- Susan Sniader Lanser
- Daniel Patte
- Hugh C. White
- Title: Semeia 41: Speech Act Theory and Biblical Criticism
- Editor: Hugh C. White
- Publisher: Society of Biblical Literature
- Publication Date: 1987
- Pages: 178
