By Ferdinand Deist
Scholarly discussions of biblical interpretation usually forget about the truth that language and literature shape an essential component of a people's tradition, that interpretation for that reason implies the full cultural approach of the appropriate literature, and that biblical interpretation accordingly implies inter-cultural verbal exchange. This e-book explores the theoretical and functional implications of this statement from a cultural anthropological viewpoint, appears at fresh anthropological stories of old Israelite society, provides sensible examples of a cultural interpretation of historic Hebrew narratives, and discusses the influence of the notions 'cultural relativity' and 'inter-cultural conversation' for biblical interpretation.
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But there is another important aspect of the synchronic approach that should not be overlooked. Following Hermann Paul, de Saussure distinguished between observing the concrete speech of different individuals (parole) and an average abstract type of the language they speak (langue). Langue, as the institutionalized repository of a speech com- 36 The Material Culture of the Bible mimity, dictates the rules of the language at any given stage, while parole consists of particular speech actions. In order to eliminate the changing influence and unstable nature of la parole on the rules of la langue, de Saussure focused, and this is important, on la langue at a specific point in time.
In biblical literature, the interpreter, very much like an anthropologist doing fieldwork, is confronted with such an alternative, 'external' world. In this regard Roy Wagner (1996: 52-53) writes, In experiencing a new culture, the fieldworker comes to realize new potentialities and possibilities for the living of life, and may undergo a personality change himself. The subject becomes 'visible,' and then 'believable' to him, he apprehends it first as a distinct entity, a way of doing things, and then secondly as a way in which he could be doing things.
Second, 'relevance' involves the amount of effort a hearer has to devote to process the information imparted by an utterance. For example, the less processing effort is required the greater the chances are that the intended effect will be achieved. But also, if a particular utterance requires more processing effort to have a contextual effect, such extra effort should be 'rewarded' with greater contextual effect, or meaning. In this connection one may speak of justifiable processing effort. In the process of listening to a speaker the hearer constantly formulates hypotheses regarding the speaker's intention.