Search results for ""Author Nathan Eric Dickman""

While many people engage in interpretation, it is not clear what interpretation is. This critical primer examines the nature of interpretation, strategies within interpretation, and negotiations about the adequacy of an interpretation, with special attention paid to possible roles hermeneutics (the theory of interpretation) plays in the academic study of religions. This book addresses a number of fundamental questions posed throughout the history of hermeneutics: • What is an “interpretation”? • What or who determines the meaning of a text? • What helps in navigating competitions or conflicts of interpretation? • What is the place of interpretation in the academy, relative to explanatory sciences and productive arts? Many books have focused on historical developments of hermeneutics, on key modern hermeneutic philosophers, or on specific sacred texts such as in biblical or Quranic hermeneutics. The unique approach taken to interpretation here is based on the fundamental axiom of philosophical hermeneutics—the hermeneutic priority of questioning. Through this, the author makes a case for the critical value of interpretation. Each chapter of this book refines a conceptual element that combines with others into a theory of interpretation useful for the classroom and in scholarship on hermeneutics.

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Buddhas, gods, prophets and oracles are often depicted as asking questions. But what are we to understand when Jesus asks “Who do you say that I am?”, or Mazu, the Classical Zen master asks, “Why do you seek outside?" Is their questioning a power or weakness? Is it something human beings are only capable of due to our finitude? Is there any kind of question that is a power? Focusing on three case studies of questions in divine discourse on the level of story - the god depicted in the Jewish Bible, the master Mazu in his recorded sayings literature, and Jesus as he is depicted in canonized Christian Gospels - Nathan Eric Dickman meditates on human responses to divine questions. He considers the purpose of interreligious dialogue and the provocative kind of questions that seem to purposefully decenter us, drawing on methods from confessionally-oriented hermeneutics and skills from critical thinking. He allows us to see alternative ways of interpreting religious texts through approaches that look beyond reading a text for the improvement of our own religion or for access to some metaphysically transcendent reality. This is the first step in a phenomenology of religions that is inclusive, diverse, relevant and grounded in the world we live in.

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While many people engage in interpretation, it is not clear what interpretation is. This critical primer examines the nature of interpretation, strategies within interpretation, and negotiations about the adequacy of an interpretation, with special attention paid to possible roles hermeneutics (the theory of interpretation) plays in the academic study of religions. This book addresses a number of fundamental questions posed throughout the history of hermeneutics: • What is an “interpretation”? • What or who determines the meaning of a text? • What helps in navigating competitions or conflicts of interpretation? • What is the place of interpretation in the academy, relative to explanatory sciences and productive arts? Many books have focused on historical developments of hermeneutics, on key modern hermeneutic philosophers, or on specific sacred texts such as in biblical or Quranic hermeneutics. The unique approach taken to interpretation here is based on the fundamental axiom of philosophical hermeneutics—the hermeneutic priority of questioning. Through this, the author makes a case for the critical value of interpretation. Each chapter of this book refines a conceptual element that combines with others into a theory of interpretation useful for the classroom and in scholarship on hermeneutics.

Read more less