Power In His Presence

 

 

TITLE OF THE ARTICLE: WHAT IS ‘GENERATIVE POETICS’? THESE AND REFLECTIONS CONCERNING A NEW EXEGETICAL METHOD

 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: ERHARDT GUTTGEMANNS-(NOT AVAILABLE)

Erhardt is a German Professor who had greatly affected biblical study in the past years. His knowledge was very profound in matters of criticisms and apologetics.

 

BIBLIOGRAPHIC DATA: BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION, VOLUME XIV, NO. 3, 2006

 

URL: www.brill.nl

 

OUTLINE OF THE ARTICLE:

1. WHAT GENERATIVE POETICS IS ALL ABOUT
2. AXIOMS OF THE METHOD FOR STUDYING BIBLICAL TEXTS
3. FUNDAMENTAL REMARKS AND CONCLUSION

 

 

WHAT THE ARTICLE IS ALL ABOUT:

 

1. Generative Poetics is a new method of linguistic textual analysis that is applicable to all human texts. It is the first method of dealing with texts to feature a controllable connection between biblical texts, which are the object of the analytical grammar, and contemporary speaking in the church which is the object of the synthetic grammar. As a grammar, Generative Poetics not only ties theology to grammar (as in scholastic theology), but it also explicates theology as grammar: Theology thereby becomes the science of the operations and transformations between texts “given” to us in the tradition and texts to be “produced” today; its scientific character is tied to the linguistic reflection that constitutes the metalinguistic status of theology.
2. Generative Poetics has as its epistemological basis specific axioms derived from “common sense” in linguistics and literary criticism.

The first axiom is the option for the fundamental thesis of Ferdinand de Saussure, the founder of modern structural linguistics. This modern formation is a paraphrase of Saussure’s thesis that language must first be regarded synchronically and only afterwards diachronically (which is a sequence of diachronic texts in a language, so that the language is a synchronic system in the diachronic text.

The second axiom emphasizes on the distinction between the actuality of a “given” text and the already mentioned grammatical forces. The actuality of a text is the direct object of linguistic analysis, which must consequently be a text linguistic.

The third axiom is the recognition that between the surface of a text and its linguistic basis there is a hierarchical relationship, not a linear relationship of projection or representation.

The forth axiom is also the form-critical thesis that texts can be differentiated by “genres” or “forms”.

The fifth axiom is the functional character of a text or sign. We can refer here to the speech function model of Karl Buhler, Frederich Kainz, and Roman Jakobson, which exhibits the functional and organic character of a sign and of sentences.

The sixth axiom is the thesis that generative and transformational grammar is a kind of game theory. According to this theory, a concrete text is a performative “match” in which both speaker (author) and hearer (reader) employ a “strategy” of “alternatives.”

The seventh axiom is the option for the lexeme that expresses an action, i.e., the option for Lucien Testniere’s structural syntax, according to which the verbal node expresses a small drama that is expanded into the text by introducing actants and circumstants. This position implies, naturally, modern form of actantial theory as well as agreement with Charles J. Fillmore’s theory of deep case (Fillmore).

The eighth axiom is the distinction between several kinds of transformations. These are not only syntactic transformations (for example the change from active to passive, vice versa), but also semantic and pragmatic transformations.

 

3.Here, Erhard tries to explicate clearly the aforementioned axioms in order to even to clear the understanding of the unprepared reader who will face difficulties in reading this article. The reader who is accustomed only to traditional theology has difficulties in understanding and this caused by our exegetical tradition. Generative Poetics claim to be a methodologically and scientifically reflective textual theory that can stand up to contemporary standards of scientific theorizing, succeeding “existential interpretation” which is the only earlier text theory that has been consistently thought through.

 

Traditional exegesis involves an alienation and surprising behavior which is related to a constriction of the sociology of knowledge, according to which only that can be taught and passed along in theology which has already been considered the legitimate content of theology.

Again, another cause of the estrangement now being experienced is that traditional exegesis has shut itself off not only from practical theology, but also from the daily affairs of the schools and from the education of Philologians of religion.