圣书、评注,诠释的挑战

Scripture,Commentary,and the Challenge of Interpretation

圣经叙事和诗歌的一个极其重要的维度,是文本赖以建构之文学惯例和技巧的复杂背景。由于主要为了求得神学真理和道德教训的圣经阅读延续了千百年之久,我们已经失去许多开启这类惯例和技巧的钥匙。对于更充分地阅读圣经文本而言,所需要的是一种文学考古学,类似于对古代以色列物质文化进行确凿发掘的考古学程序。借助于耐心的分析和细致的推理,有可能发现古代叙事和诗歌赖以构造成文学作品的诸多特定方式。继而,这种发现性工作能使我们更清晰地看到圣经文本是如何运作的。它无法提供某种自动组装的诠释,因为诠释总会涉及想象行为,但它却能为诠释提供更可靠的依据,并帮助作为读者的我们体验古代文本的精微奥妙和错综复杂之处。

A crucial dimension of biblical narrative and poetry is the complex set of literary conventions and techniques with which the texts are organized.Because so many centuries have intervened in which the Bible was read primarily for theological truths and moral instruction,we have lost the keys to many of these conventions and techniques. For a fuller reading of the biblical texts,what is required is a kind of literary archaeology,analogous to the archaeological procedures that have literally unearthed the material culture of ancient Israel.By patient analysis and careful inference,it is feasible to recover many of the distinctive ways in which the ancient narratives and poems were organized as literary artifacts.This act of recovery can then enable us to see more clearly what is going on in the biblical texts.It cannot provide an automatic mechanism of interpretation because interpretation always involves an act of imagination,but it can ground interpretation more solidly and help us as readers to follow the subtleties and the intricacies of the ancient texts.