Text and Time: Ten Propositions on Early Rabbinic Hermeneutics

Ten propositions on the nature of early rabbinic hermeneutics are presented. These propositions focus on the fact that the rabbis treat the meaning of a text from the past as unfolding in the present. Specifically, rabbinic hermeneutics ties Biblical meaning to human action, the horizon of which is the present & the projected future. The fixed verbal structures of the Biblical text are contextualized in that action-oriented rabbinic present, somewhat akin to the "fulfillment" in a present which gives prophecy or proverb their full meaning. Also, the institution of a weekly reading of Scripture must have created random hermeneutic contextualizations of the Biblical text through the reader's present. The rabbinic homily, however, does not contextualize the Biblical text through a rabbinic present but through a Biblical past, albeit an exemplary one. This amounts to an articulation of the rabbinic present through the language of Scripture. The Biblical text thus was on the one hand the unquestionable language through which the salient features of the present were constituted (& their perception limited); & on the other hand, it was the target of an objectification which problematized linguistic meaning. An attempt is made to identify some of the modern concepts which underpin the 10 propositions, concentrating largely on 20th-century philosophy. Adapted from the source document