@MonicaCellio I'd say yes. I think application when the thing being applied is the hermeneutical process itself as a field is different than dragging in application of doctrine that came out of exegesis. Does that make any sense?
@MonicaCellio I'm going to go ahead and call that one for now. I realize I'm the most biased party possible to label that answer as official consensus but hey - what are moderators for? If anybody wants to challenge that judgement call please downvote, comment and ping me. I'm all ears.
As a result of recent debate over whether certain answers would be considered acceptable on this site, we posed the question "What are we looking for in answers?". In my foray into the issue, I noted that of the two main classes of questions we field (questions about the field of hermeneutics and...
As a result of recent debate over whether certain answers would be considered acceptable on this site, we posed the question "What are we looking for in answers?". In my foray into the issue, I noted that of the two main classes of questions we field (questions about the field of hermeneutics and...
To everybody that has previously reviewed my proposal about what makes a good answer, I have made some subtle refinements at prompting from @mike and @JackDouglas. I hope I have remained true to the original authors intent and retained the gist of what we were agreeing on while removing a potential cause of confusion. The revision history might be worth a glance if you are sweating the details.
@Caleb it reads like personal application to me, though -- not "what does this text say (according to any hermeneutic)" but, rather, "how do I know what to do about it". It's almost asking how to judge pastoral care in a way, if that makes sense.
@MonicaCellio Of course it is not asking "what does this text say" because it is not an exegesis question. Its' a question about hermeneutical process. The how of interpretation is just exactly what out site expertise should be able to answer.
We must mean very different things by the expression "pastoral care", because I don't see how that is relevant at all. Could you clarify?
Did you know that we have a chat room? Did you know that we can name it whatever we want? What name would make sense for the Biblical Hermeneutics chat room?
Many of the rooms are named after a place where people who are the audience of the site might get a bite to eat or just hang out:
Chr...
BTW, swashek's answer there would have been my suggestion for the accept and has my upvote because I think it sets the clearest timeline for the how process and is the most useful in understanding hermeneutics as a discipline in itself, even if the others are quite relevant for the practice of it as a Christian. It would be interesting to have an answer on that that from Jewish perspective as well.
@Caleb Well, the question begins "Can I read a Bible passage and personalize it? Meaning, does it apply to me? How do I know when it is for me or for someone else ?" and goes on from there. I'm having trouble seeing the hermeneutics there, when we've said that herm. is not about application. I think (per swasheck's answer) that I might have been conflating "application" with "meaning" and "significance" -- or perhaps OP did.
@JonEricson yeah, it has good answers (it looks like; I see I'd previously up-voted only one of them, but not down-voted), but the question itself seems weak to me. Can it be redeemed (without breaking answers, of course)?
@MonicaCellio The OP really doesn't know how to do interpretation. They are not an expert in the field and the question wording shows it, but the core issue being asked about is real enough and I think the question is genuine. The answer field is the place for our experts to shine.
@JonEricson if you get to it (on any day) it'll bubble up, and I can take a look at supplying a Jewish perspective then. (Going to wait for a clearer question before trying that.) No rush; I came across it yesterday and figured I'd ask. (I was comparing the herm-approaches tag to tag wikis to see if any of the former could help the latter.)
@MonicaCellio My rule of thumb on our meta has been that a score of 5 or more is a consensus. A score of +9/-0 over a single weekend must be some sort of record for us.
@JackDouglas On meta, yeah -- while acceptance is not a completely clear indicator of anything, I think we should strive for "policy"-type posts having accepted answers that the community agrees on. Like Jon did on the chat-name post.
Did you know that we have a chat room? Did you know that we can name it whatever we want? What name would make sense for the Biblical Hermeneutics chat room?
Many of the rooms are named after a place where people who are the audience of the site might get a bite to eat or just hang out:
Chr...
