The Art of Biblical Hermeneutics: The Story of the Canaanite Woman

Abstract

Biblical hermeneutics is originally utilized as a theory, a methodology and a formal process through which the interpreter employs certain principles and methods in order to derive the author’s intended meaning and comment upon the different shades that a religious discourse carries. Using Gadamer’s (1977) hermeneutical framework, the study examines how the four techniques (literal/moral/allegorical/anagogical) of biblical interpretation are not enough within scholarship to channel broader understanding of biblical texts and maps out how these levels of interpretation relate to each other. The corpus, which consists in the narrative of the Canaanite woman in its Matthean form, is qualitatively and quantitatively explored. Personal and demonstrative references as well as naming strategies are identified in the corpus and are qualitatively studied using the deictic anchorage to unveil their shifting relevance. The quantitative analysis then qualifies how frames are constructed using Simple Concordance Software for the frequency of keywords. The results divulge that the prospological-pragmatic interpretation proves the literal and moral interpretations and overrides the allegorical and anagogical ones. The findings also show that biblical hermeneutics is an art of understanding rather than a proper science. The study findings may be used by exegetes and biblical hermeneutics researchers to consider the artistic and the discursive processes in biblical texts.

Keywords: hermeneutics, pragmatics, exegesis, literal interpretation, naming, reference, deixis, allegory, anagogical interpretation, prospology