Jesus Remembered: Christianity in the Making, vol. 1

FAITH AND THE HISTORICAL JESUS §6.4
b. What Rights Does the Text Have?
In the middle decades of the twentieth century, as noted already, the so-called
'New Criticism' introduced the idea of the 'autonomy' of a text. 56 The intention
was to free the text from the assumption that its meaning must be defined as the
meaning intended by the author. 57 We have still to address the question of
meaning, but even at this point it is probably worth registering a word of caution
against a too casual talk of a text's autonomy. For the imagery evoked is unfortunate.
As though the interpreter somehow 'liberated' a text from its historical
context; whereas to set it in that context was somehow to violate its autonomy.
But the 'autonomy' of a text is another illusion. For a text will always be read in
context, whether the historical context of the text, or of its later editions, or the
contemporary context of the reader. The text is not like a free-floating balloon
to be pulled to earth every so often, its message read, and then released back
again into the atmosphere, as though that was its natural setting. As text it was
always earth-bound from the first. The reality is that the less attention given to
the text's own context, the more likely the text is to be abused by the
hermeneutical process.
To change the imagery to that of rights. At one point Robert Morgan, who
favours the concept of textual determinacy but is ever conscious that all such affirmations
need to be carefully nuanced, asserts that 'Texts, like dead men and
women, have no rights ...' . 58 But is that a nuance too far? After all, the rights of
dead men and women are protected by inheritance law. Their reputations (the
right to how they are remembered, their significance) will be defended by those
who cherish their memory. Perhaps the rights of a text are better compared to
those of a child. As the rights of a child include the right to know its parentage
and place of origin, so the rights of a text include the right to its own identity as
determined by its composer or by the process which resulted in its enduring text
form. Here again there are obvious qualifications to be registered. Some texts,
particularly proverbs and aphorisms, were never limited to a particular context
and their enduring value is independent of a specific context of usage. But others,
like the letters of Paul, were clearly written in particular historical contexts and
with particular historical circumstances in view. Any reading which disregards or
discounts what evidence we have of these contexts and these circumstances is
more than likely to misread the text.
56. Thiselton, New Horizons 58-60.
57. So again Ricoeur: 'The autonomy of the text already contains the possibility that
what Gadamer calls the "matter" of the text may escape from the intentional horizon of its author'
(The Hermeneutical Function of Distanciation' 83).
58. Morgan, Biblical Interpretation 1.
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