Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Christine Bass" <christinebass AT home.com>]

> Finally, you said:

"It is interesting to observe the different
perspectives through which information is being filtered and analyzed in
thisdiscussion."

> You have, in fact, demonstrated a excellent example of
> redactional activity and how it can confuse the original intent! Thanks
>for the lesson! ;-)

> cbrady @ tulane.edu
>
========================================

You're welcome, Christian. I  have a few more up my sleeve
if you liked that one....;-)

Seriously, however, it is apparent to me that a person's
perspective gives a certain "spin"  to the interpretation of a text,
no matter how neutral the individual attempts to be. Everyone, including me,
comes to the text with a  personal perspective.


I have seen this portrayed in interpreting some of Herman Melville's
writing,
specifically a poem named "Clarel, A Poem and Pilgrimage in the Holy Land,"
in which there are literally hundreds of biblical allusions
and references. The difference between how I interpreted these references
and their significance and how a Melville scholar coming from the
perspective of an agnostic
interpreted them was large, along the lines of ...are we reading the same
poem?
We were, but you would not have known it from our disparate conclusions.


(I like to think of  this as the "fluid text" principle----what the text
means is fluid depending on who doing the reading.)



The same type of thing appears to occur in interpreting this text.

Regards,

Christine