The Importance of Form as the Starting-Point for Understanding the Content of a Text (in Particular a Biblical Text)
Abstract
The form and content of a text are very closely linked. the aim of this article is to emphasise this connection still further and to discuss the interpreting methods that draw on the formal side of a text, or rather build an interpretation on the formal side of a text. these methods are generally referred to as text-oriented methods. For them, the text is an autonomous, independently functioning whole.
A significant influence on the development of these methods is to be found in French Structuralism and also in some German tendencies. However, variants on them also emerged elsewhere in Europe and also overseas (close reading).
A more detailed division is therefore complicated; in this article the criterion of justiEcation was chosen - in other words, why the text is taken to be an autonomous whole, which is sucient in itself for an interpretation. On this basis the whole spectrum has been divided into the confessing approach (it is because of the guidance of the Holy Spirit), and the approach that regards the text as a work of art.
The article also aims to demonstrate the originality of interpretations based on these methods, and at the same time their faithfulness to Holy Scripture, and compares these interpretations both with older interpretations and with traditional viewpoints. With the text of the Decalogue, in particular, the interpretation of Jiří Beneš introduces a new element into the ethical and theological level of the text, by regarding the Decalogue primarily as a statement about God's deeds.
The final section attempts to show what work with these approaches and methods can look like. Examples are given of an analysis of a text on the basis of the sentence structure and a detailed interpretation that pays attention to the position of each word.
There is also an example of orientation on the basis of parallel sections on the level of several chapters. Finally, a concentric structure with interpretation is presented.
With all these methodological applications, the connection between the formal side and the content is demonstrated. Thus the interpretation of the structure of a text always goes hand in hand with its message.
The purpose of the article is to encourage discussion about and interest in these approaches and to demonstrate their possible benefits.