Structuralism, Hermeneutics, and Contextual Meaning

Abstract

erhaps one should begin by defining one's terms. But, were I to attempt to define and carefully, completely, and in a way that would satisfy all-or even moststructuralists or hermeneuticists, I fear I would never move beyond this beginning. Thus, although I shall not begin entirely in mediis rebus, I must assume some experience of the workings of structuralism and of hermeneutics. I regard structuralism and hermeneutics as approaches to meaning, as ways of investigating the significance of things-from individual texts to whole cultures-and the significance of significance. My present task is to compare and contrast these two approaches to meaning-structuralism and hermeneutics-by considering especially their goals, or end points, and their presuppositions, or beginning points. Although my references will be chiefly to approaches to meaning in biblical studies, I wish to understand in a more general way the contexts in which structuralism and hermeneutics seek meaning and seek to make meaning. Relations between structuralism and hermeneutics are often implied in the characterization of either structuralism or hermeneutics. For example, Robert Culley, in characterizing structuralism, presents a model of the three focal points of scholarly approaches to biblical texts: author, text, reader./1/ According to this model, the author is the shared focal point of source criticism; the text is the focus of rhetorical criticism and structural analysis; the reader is the focus of biblical hermeneutics (167-69). Thus Culley's model indicates a fundamental difference between structuralism and hermeneutics. A model presented by Robert Polzin, on the other hand, suggests a fundamental similarity between structuralism and hermeneutics: self-conscious awareness of the role of

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