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Sic enim est traditum

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 December 2009

John Wansbrough
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Extract

Use of the term ‘exegesis’ is now so general that scholars in the field of scriptural studies must have sensed an impingement upon their conventional prerogative. If, perhaps, they are justified in so doing, they might none the less be prepared to acknowledge the value of ancillary functions accumulated in its extension into areas beyond its standard application to literature. While it may be that these can be encompassed in the general shift from self-consciously ‘interpretative’ to epistemologically ‘hermeneutic’, it would seem more practical to identify as ‘exegesis’ any and every act of perception. That, of course, is facilitated by the now conventional notion of ‘text’ espoused by most practitioners of structuralism. Whether one equates every datum of perception as somehow ‘textual’ or, conversely, the perception of every text as dependent upon the totality of experience, does not really matter. ‘Exegesis’ is conveniently inclusive and may be thought of general utility in the service of every taste and all analytical techniques. As such, it is ineluctably present in every transaction of the intellect: one observes, hears, reads, and makes the necessary adjustments in aid of understanding. In the very interests of survival, one seldom elects not to understand. It is the ‘necessary adjustments’ that require description, abundantly documented in the textbooks of literary criticism: from the rhetorical ‘naming of parts’ to contemporary discourse analysis. If it seems difficult to add to that vast corpus of technical terms, it is certainly possible to take a stand in respect of their presumptive efficiency.

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Articles
Information
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 51 , Issue 2 , June 1988 , pp. 203 - 213
Copyright
Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies 1988

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References

1 Fishbane, M., Biblical interpretation in ancient Israel, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1985. xviii, 613 pp. £35Google Scholar

2 Biblical interpretation, p. 6, n. 17, acknowledging Knight, D., Rediscovering the traditions of Israel, Missoula, Scholars Press, 1975. The dichotomy is pursued apud Fishbane passim, but I should like to draw attention in particular to pp. 51, 62–3, 86–8, 179, 219, 231–6, 258, 266, 272, 276–7, 362, 381–2, 412–3, 459–60, 513–5, and 543.Google Scholar Some dislocation may have resulted from Fishbane's employment of the dyad for written sources, whereas Knight's concern was oral materials. I think the difference could be crucial.

3 cf. Borges, J. L., Labyrinths (ed. Yates, D. and Irby, J.), Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1970: ‘Pierre Menard, author of the Quixote’, p. 69.Google Scholar

4 Reference p. 10, n. 28 to Quranic studies (Oxford, 1977) is gratifying but puzzling. The text of Muslim scripture bristles with internal exegesis: cf. my observations on ‘Revelation and Canon’ (pp. 1–52), ‘Deutungsbedürftigkeit’ (pp. 148–70), and naskh (pp. 192–202).Google Scholar

5 See Sectarian milieu (Oxford, 1978), 1–49Google Scholar for an analysis of Islamic salvation history based to a large extent upon the ‘einfache Former’.

6 cf. respectively Wansbrough, J. E. and Veenhof, K. R., apud Mindlin, M. el al. (ed.), Figurative language in the Ancient Near East, London, SOAS, 1987, 103–16; 41–75Google Scholar esp. 43. Incidentally, ad p. 302, n. 27, Akkadian akālu is paralleled by Arabic akala in metaphorical usage.

7 See, for example, Ricoeur, P., The rule of metaphor, London, 1978, esp. pp. 44–64Google Scholar; and the provocative symposium edited by Sacks, S., On metaphor, Chicago, 1979.Google Scholar

8 The most recent and valuable contribution in this area is Avishur, Y., Stylistic studies of wordpairs in Biblical and Ancient Semitic literatures, AOAT, 210. Neukirchen-Vluyn, 1984.Google Scholar

9 See Sectarian milieu, 137–46 ad nostalgia and clóolure logocentrique.Google Scholar

10 See Quranic studies, 85–118 for the secular rhetoric of sacred language.Google Scholar

11 ibid., pp. 69–70, 79–80, 144–5 ad akhbār al–ghayb.

12 cf. Sectarian milieu, 115–19 on the ‘Danielic paradigm’ and its afterlife; to the references there (e.g. Abel, Lewis, Steinschneider)Google Scholar add Alexander, P. J., ‘Medieval apocalypses as historical sources’, American Historical Review, 73, 1967/8, 997–1018.Google Scholar

13 See, e.g., Ullendorff, E., Is Biblical Hebrew a language?, Wiesbaden, 1977, 3–17 for some statistics and other observations.Google Scholar

14 See Scholem, G., The Messianic idea in Judaism, New York, 1971, 282–303Google Scholar: ‘Revelation and tradition as religious categories in Judaism’.