Jesus Remembered: Christianity in the Making, vol. 1

§6.4 History, HermeneuHcs and Faith
on or close off other meanings heard or read from the communication in its continuing
existence as text; but the hermeneutical principle of plain meaning in historical
context as the primary reading or first goal in interpretation still stands. 63
Of course, the ancient communicator, unlike the present-day communicator,
cannot be engaged in dialogue regarding the meaning of his words, so that
the hermeneutical equivalent of the Lessing (or uncertainty) principle will reduce
the consensus. But here, in hermeneutics as with historical method, we are not
dealing with meaning as an objective artefact, and our 'reconstruction' of historical
meaning in historical context will be an exercise in probabilities and approximations,
whose success will depend on how much data (historical philology) are
available to us. In fact, most passages in the NT have a fair degree of stability of
meaning in terms of the words and idioms and syntax of their time of composition.
And the interpreter who is able to draw on the fruits of classical philology
and to recognize the text's genre is more likely to gain access to that stable meaning
as intended by its author than are other interpreters. Again, this is not to deny
that other readings in other, subsequent contexts of the text, including the text in
translation, are possible and valid. It is simply to assert again that the normativity
of the historical text in historical context should be acknowledged. Alternatively
expressed, historical criticism does not dictate the meaning of a historical text,
but exegesis should be accorded some right to indicate the limits beyond which
readings of the text become implausible and illegitimate.
To restate the point (§6.4b above) in terms of meaning and with still different
imagery, if we liken a historical text to a plant, then it is vital that we take account
of the fact that it is embedded in a certain soil, with roots and tendrils reaching
often deep into that soil. To uproot the plant and attempt to transpose it into a
different bed without regard to its rootedness is likely to kill it. A historical text is
like such a plant. The plain 'meaning' cannot be fully read off the text without regard
to its rootedness in its originating context. The reference is not only to the situation/social
context of writer and first readers/auditors, but also to the overtones
that the words and phrases and idioms would have carried in these contexts (the
root tendrils) and to the allusions and echoes, intended but also unintended, which
the language of the text would have conveyed when it enacted the purpose for
which it was written. That already makes for a tremendous 'richness' in the text,
which means that 'plain meaning' is never a matter of understanding a text in
terms merely of its grammatical and syntactical structure. But it also serves as a
63. Cf. Morgan, Biblical Interpretation 181-82, 198, 156-57. For a recent vigorous defence
of 'literal sense', 'authorial intention', and even 'objective interpretation' see F. Watson,
Text and Truth: Redefining Biblical Theology (Edinburgh: Clark, 1997) 95-126. Anthony
Thiselton refers me particularly to R. Searle, 'Literal Meaning', Expression of Meaning (Cambridge:
Cambridge University, 1979) 117-36, and N. Wolterstorff, Divine Discourse (Cambridge:
Cambridge University, 1995) 183-201.
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