Framing the text : ‘ Background studies ’ and New Testament

U nderstanding a text always dem ands knowledge of its context. Possible reasons why context is frequently regarded as a subord inate p art o f in te rp re ta tion are analysed. Interpretation within a communicative pers­ pective, and facets o f contextualisation are discussed; som e theoretical aspects concerning contextual issues are clarified. The notion ‘framing the text’ is defended to emphasise that history is constructed and always p re ­ supposes a perspective. Framing is a comprehensive ac­ tivity which adds complexity. Because it engages in his­ to r ica l in te rp re ta tio n and d escrib es asp ec ts o f the various levels of context, one’s fram ing activity can be criticised and im proved. Fram ing arises from oscilla­ tion betw een intensive in te rp re ta tio n of de ta ils and generalisation.


INTRODUCTION
The appeal to context in m atters of dispute about m eaning is a natural and obvious ...the notion of text, and its plasticity when subject to various forms of m ediated com m unication, is one...concept in need of m ore sensitive exam ination...an inscription is not fully a text until som eone reads it, th at is, until som eone produces from the w riter's text som ething non textual...T o do this req u ires a code th a t th e text itself does not p ro vide.Texts, as texts, are dependent on som ething nontextual.All text is pretext.U nless som eone has this extra textual code which m akes reading possible and applies the code, the physical inscription rem ains forever no m ore than a visible pattern on a surface.
T h e in d isp u tab le and indispensable role o f this no ntextual 'so m eth in g e x tra ', is usually referred to as context.However, context turns out to be a complex concept.
It may be possible to clarify som e of the problem s by analysing aspects o f the con cept context.A fter all, reflection on the conditions for understanding is very much part of the process itself.
M ore specifically, this study m ust be u n d ersto o d with referen ce to a clearly observable pheno m en o n in New T estam en t scholarship.T h e re is undoubtedly a strong em phasis on the im portance of context in this field of study.A few examples, w hich can be m ultiplied alm ost indefinitely, are M artin (1977:220-222), R o b erts (1978:63-64), M albon (1983:223), V orster (1984:111) and B otha (1991a: 280, 287; 1991b: 296, 299).No one seriously denies the contribution a n d /o r value o f context.D espite the affirm ation, w hat exactly is m eant by context is left unclear: Why it is im portant -in practice -usually turns out to be a rhetorical move to prop up o n e's interpretation.How context should be utilised for the proper interpretation of texts is seen as som ehow a comm on sense activity.
South-A frican New T estam ent research has been assessed as having a distinct perspective -alm ost an exclusive concern with literary and textual m atters (Elliott 1988; cf a sim ilar rem ark by M oore 1989:xiv n3).A motley array o f reasons can p ro bably be supplied, but this de facto slighting of context appears to be related to, or rath er, to be a sym ptom of a m isconception of history.In a defense of a 'historicized' approach to re ad er response gospel criticism, Beavis (1987) has com m ented on the assum ption that literary and historical criticism do not mix; a sentim ent that, disguised in various term in o lo g ies (sy n ch ro n y /d iach ro n y ; te x t/e x tra-te x t etc), is quite comm on.Yet these are activities that presuppose each other, neither of these I would like to argue that participating in historical activity, in a com prehensive, interpretive sense is more than of im portance to New T estam ent research.It relates to the very essence of understanding.Construing a text is always also construing its context.To underscore the fact that context is construed, actively m ade by the in ter preter, the notion of 'framing a text' will be developed.We fram e texts on the basis of relevance -consequently w hat we are and want to know are p art and parcel of the 'context' of the text.T hat 'fram ing' im plies an interplay with the various levels o f context as well as an active en g ag em en t in d escribing aspects o f th ese levels m akes it possible to discuss and criticise (to 'control') o u r fram es with evidence, in the sense of patterns of relationships through time.know that it is produced, and th at it is not saturable.C ontextualization is never com pleted; rath er one reaches a point w here further contextualixation seem s unproductive.(C uller 1988:148) This forces one to recognise that the interp reter actively brings to the text selective factors with which to designate contexts (and oth er texts) to the text (cf De Villiers 1984:68).

Communication as transmission
W hether explicitly, such as V orster (1977:18-23), or at a m ore general level, there exists w idespread agreem ent that exegesis is about 'letting the texts speak', allowing the texts to 'com m unicate'.
Problem s arise, not with this, but with the way that com m unication is concep 2 3 M eaning as system T he w id esp read influence o f S aussure in linguistics and literary th eo ries is well known, and also well deserved.Yet, the tendency of researchers to present contro versial id eas w ith o u t critical discussion c re a te s m ore havoc th a n illu m in atio n .
S aussure has fo rm u lated , am ongst o th ers, som e ra th e r lim ited and vague ideas, generating a w ealth of debate, but often with only a superficial understanding of the problem s (Saussure 1974;cf C uller 1976;Sless 1986:132-145;Coward & Ellis 1981: 162-164).O ne particular concept has led to misconception, namely that m eaning is related to sharing in a system.
'Language exists in the form of a sum of im pressions deposited in the brain of each m em ber of a com m unity, alm ost like a dictionary of which identical copies have been distributed to each individual.Language exists in each individual, yet it is com m on to ail' (Saussure 1974:19).This fundam ental assum ption has becom e very powerful.
Following Saussure and others who have em phasised the shared aspect o f lang uages (m eaning as system to refer to the collective n atu re of language) th ere has been a tendency to gloss over the breaks, fissures and chasms which characterise the in frastru ctu re of und erstan d in g in favour o f holistic (read m onistic) approaches.
T h ese approach es exam ine the n ature o f u n d erstanding and texts with constructs such as 'linguistic co m p eten ce', the 'logic of cu ltu re' o r 'discursive p ractices' -in short The System which answ ers all questions.The practical correlation of this as sum ption is that hum an action can be explained by reference to laws and initial con ditions, by 'discovering' ind ep en d en t unvariables; or by exposing essences ('d e e p ' structures).49/1 & 2 (1993) Two im portant notions must consequently be em phasised.Firstly, that com m u nication is a very, very complex thing.

HTS
C om m unication as sharing looks backw ard to a ro m an tic notion of com m unity th at we can never recap tu re, even assum ing th at it ever existed; the curse of Babel has probably always been there, waiting in the wings to overwhelm us at any m om ent with confusion and m isun derstanding.T ransm ission as a concept o f com m unication is firmly rooted in the ideology of imperialism.O nce we question the authority of the im perialist we must also question the validity o f his intellectual postures.
(Sless 1986:23) C om m unication also generates m isunderstanding and conflict, and m ust be reg ar ded as an ongoing problematic rath er than as an integrated and hom ogeneous entity.
Novelty and deviation are as much a p art of the com m unicative contexts o f human life as are routine and the taken-for-granted procedures through which coordinated hum an behaviour is accomplished.
Secondly, in place of a search for laws and independent essentials there should be a careful investigation of the situation in which an action (com m unicative event) was perform ed.Just as shapes or figures are sim ilar or different depending on their ground o r context, so m eanings, events, acts, p eo p le and th eir ideas can only be sim ilar or different in relationship to a background (see B aker & H acker 1980:258-283).'M eaning' is not a private, subjective entity, but is created by the use of ex pressions in social interaction: Only an analysis of the context of hum an action can give insight into both its d eterm in an ts and its m eaning.'T h at is, w ithout the his torical dim ension, which provides the context of a comm unicative act, the meaning of a comm unicative act cannot be fully or truly understood' (M ander 1983:11).

SOME DISllNCTIONS
Thinking about context clearly dem ands some distinctions, and one frequently finds or them atic knowledge.I will also add some rem arks about how it may be possible to do this sort of thing realistically and fairly.
No doubt should exist as to the fact th a t these 'fe a tu re s' d escribe m ore than m ere parts o f a process; they are aspects with substantiality in them selves, yet irre trievably interwoven with each other.Thus, the idea is not to create the im pression that contextualising is like assembling, building by taking blocks from the one 'level' for co n stru ctin g th e o th e r.T h e re is an extensive in terp lay b etw een the various 'levels', these distinctions are m ade for argum ent's sake.
The point I am trying to m ake has to do with the p henom enon th at context is often reduced to disconnected details.To counter this, the em phasis is on the im por tance of w orking with background aspects them selves in o rd e r to get a feeling for the interw ovenness of d ata selected for a context; not only interconnected, but rela ted to the environm ent in strange and unexpected ways.The dynamic side to the as pects selected for a constructed setting can be illustrated with referen ce to orality and literacy in antiquity.N otions like texts, tradition and even writing derive their m eaning from th e no rm ativ e cu ltu ral v alues w ithin w hich they occur.W hen it com es to New T estam ent docum ents we should not only bew are of our literate bias and assum ptions about com m unication implying inherent, constant and unchanging qualities, or, put differently, im puting contem porary notions to historical concepts, but should also relate our selected aspects to others; Talking about transm ission of traditions is also talking about ancient education, ancient literacy and ancient story telling (A chtem eier 1990; B otha 1990, 1992a).

Setting
W ith the term 'setting' the idea is to refer to context in the sense of aciuat, relevant A wide variety of inform ation in mem ory is needed to understand even simple events in the world.This knowledge cannot be stored in mem ory as a random col lection of isolated facts.If we are to be able to access and apply this general know ledge to new events, it m ust be o rganised functionally in m em ory.T h at is, the knowledge must be organised in mem ory so as to activate related inform ation that may be useful, m otivate inferences to fill in inform ation not explicitly stated, provide expectations about what may occur next, and call to mind previously understood epi sodes that contain sim ilar information.
The.se types of activities are basically the sam e when 'scientifically' interpreting ancient texts.W hat is different is the explicit intensification of aw areness and argu m ent called for.This is when the formal use of concise models and intense involve m ent with interdisciplinary research are o f the utm ost im portance (on these issues see Barton 1982:13-14;Elliott 1986;W hite 1986;R ohrbaugh 1987).
Them es, events, actions and so forth in the n arrativ e/tex t to be interpreted can typically only be causally explained and the pieces of the story connected together to form a coherent w hole with additional knowledge about them , so that it is obvious

The communicative event as the aim of interpretation
A m ong the m onum ental consequences of E instein's theory of relativity is a funda mentally profound truth regarding com m unication and knowledge.By d em onstra ting the interactive effects betw een the observer and observed, m aking final m ea surem ents problem atic, Einstein opened the way to a theory of intersubjective con stitution of tim e-consciousness (Joas 1985:172-198;cf E instein 1973:290-323, 341-356, 360-377).Less pon d ero u sly put, his w ork allows the insight th a t reality is C ritics such as Stout (1982, 1986), Fish (1980:147-173;1985), K napp & M ichaels (1982,1983,1989) and particularly Rorty (1982Rorty ( , 1985) ) have convinced me to give up on the quest for basic ground rules of rationality or criteria for public discourse as such.T here is no ultim ate perspective and consequently no true, final m ethod.In O ne should be a pragm atist.The interesting fact is that when it comes to in ter pretation we are, in any case, pragmatic.W hatever positions people think they hold on language, interp re tatio n , and belief, in practice we are all pragm atists.We all think language is intentional, and we all think our beliefs are true.In scientific con jecture, we may distinguish betw een speech acts and language, betw een having b e liefs and claiming to know, betw een having true beliefs and really knowing.W e do not practice such distinctions.Yes, a text can be anything that we want to make it.
But we never make it everything, we unceasingly make it som ething, and that som e thing is always som ething detenninate but never anything final.A text can be a lot of things, but not at the sam e tim e; final m eaning is always deferred, but determ inate m eaning is not (cf W asiolek 1983:140).

Texts
The discussion in this section is prom pted by the well-known adage that New T esta m ent science is (o r should be) a text-centred science (cf J E B otha 1991a:278)which simply raises the question: W hat is a text?
A text is a state of potentiality, and acquires reality in the coasciousness of the addresser/addressee.The 'docum ent' (as physical object or sound) may be an arti fact, but strictly speaking the text is not.An object 'becom es' a text when imagined as the m eans of expression for all the actions, relationships and connections that dis Philology, traditionally the text-centred study o f language, as contrasted to ling uistics, which is speech-centred, has o f course been concerned with making ancient or recondite docum ents accessible to those for whom they are ancient or foreign or esoteric.T erm s are glossed, notes appended, co m m en taries w ritten, and, w here necessary, transcrip tio n s m ade and translations produced in o rd e r to produce an annotated, readable 're-presentation' of the text.
Leaving out o f the p icture the practical difficulties (which as we all know are not inconsiderable), this 'picture' of interpretation seems fairly clear and acceptable.
H ow ever, as G eertz has noted, when philological concern goes beyond routinised craft pro ced u res (au th e n tic atio n , reconstruction, an n o ta tio n ) to address itself to conceptual questions concerning the n ature of texts as such -th a t is, to questions about their principles o f construction, the why, how, and what for -simplicity flees.
The result is a shattering of philology, itself by now a near obsolescent term , into disjunct and rivalrous specialties, and most particularly the growth of a division betw een those who study individual texts (histo rians, literary critics) and those who study the activity o f creating texts in general (linguists, psychologists, ethnographers).T he study of in scriptions is severed from the study of inscribing, the study o f fixed m eaning is severed from the study of the social processes th at fix it.
T he result is a double narrowness.N ot only is the extension of text analysis to nonw ritten m aterials blocked, but so is the application of sociological analysis to w ritten ones.W hat we need to grasp in the relationship is not the sequential ordering whereby one concept causes the other (the citing of parallels), but the interrelatedness which unites them and m akes the text and the context what they are.

A semiotic perspective
W hat 1 w ant to em phasise in this section is 'the proposal th a t cultural phenom ena should be tr e a te d as significative system s p osing expositive q u estio n s' (G ee rtz 1983:3).This proposal can be described as a sem iotic perspective.Yet, this is w here at least two theoretical issues concerning o n e's approach to a text should be enum erated.
The first is a consent to self-censure (which we all share, at least in theory).We do need p reunderstan d in g , presuppositions and assum ptions to understand at all; that is not the issue.The problem is to critically relate to our assumptions.Serious picion of ethnocentrism -on its ability to increase the freedom and openness o f en counters, rather than on its possession o f truth' (R orty 1991:2).
A basic sequel concerning historical activity follows: acknow ledging th at the past is a different country -to adapt the famous adage with which a novel by H a rt ley (1963:9) opens: 'The past is a foreign country: they do things differently th ere' (cf also Low enthal 1985:28-34, 410-412).'H istorical study takes an interest in w hat is really new -that is, in what is unlike ourselves' (Hirsch 1985:196).
T he study of history (or historical activity) is not a possibility o r condition for arriving at som ething (e g self-clarification), but is a fact, som ething going on any way.This is of course not a very useful rem ark, but at least it serves to raise the (ra ther im portant) question that what is really at stake can only be how it (history) can be meaningful and truthful.
The gehildeten Verachteren of history and historical understanding will be quick to point out that I am connecting two positions that (some would like to claim ) are in opposition, namely emphasis on the cognitive apriori and the priority o f historical in terp re tatio n .U nderlying my exposition is the conviction that th e fam ous sub jective-objective polarity is a plague that needs to be eradicated from our discourses.
The dichotomy: either ahisiorical unchanging canons of rationality or cultural relati vism is a dichotom y only when one adheres to a 'copy' theory of truth, 'the concep tion according to which a statem ent is true just in case it "corresponds to the T he notion of 'context' should not be pictured as som ething in itself.Such a dis tin ctio n oversim plifies ra th e r th an en h an ces critical and in terp re tiv e discussion, since the opposition betw een an a ct/ev en t and its context seem s to presum e that the context is given and determ ines the m eaning of the text/event.Context 'is not fun dam entally different from w hat it contextualises; context is not given but produced; w hat belongs to a context is d eterm ined by interpretive strategies; contexts are just as much in need o f elu cid atio n as events; and the m eaning of a context is d e te r mined by events' (C uller 1988:ix).
As C uller warns, we should bew are of the (im plied) suggestion of most uses of the term context: a suggestion of it being som ething static, real and to be discovered.(C uller 1988:ix) A dopting the notion of fram ing helps us to express the underlying relevance o f our interpretive activities.

Relevance
Describing interpretations as mapping of texts into language, Stout (1986:103) Stout (1986:115;cf also Raval 1986:125-126) ly im portant feature of interpretation.The significance o f context has been stressed by all disciplines engaged in in terp retatio n .From psychological research into hu m an com m unicative behaviour and the phenom enon of m eaning (e g B ransford & * R evised version o f a paper read al a subgroup m eeting o f (he New T estam ent Society of South A frica held at U n isa on 27 S e p te m b e r 1991.P ie te r C raffert provided som e helpful references and H elen B otha som e meaningful criticism, for which I thank them.Jo h n so n 1972; P alerm o & B ourne 1978:160-173) to fo lk lo re studies (B en-A m os 1983; H onko 1984) the concept context is constantly stressed.This em phasis seems to be related to the very structure of knowledge and understanding: Som ething o u t side the 'object' is need ed in o rd er to know or to un derstand.T he basic idea has been well expressed by O ng (1990:206):
M E C R IT IC A L CO N SID ER A TIO N S V orster (1984:111) has castigated conventional scholarship (which he calls tra d i tional historical interp retatio n ) for seeing the scope and function of context far too lim ited: for focusing on only part of the situational context.The way in which con text is usually em ployed in much of New T estam ent research seem s to refer to his tory as a backdrop to the texts.Why is it that history often seem s to be utilised in such a facile way?O r why is historical u n d erstan d in g red u ced to e n u m eratio n o f historical aspects w hich are usually considered to be clearcut 'd ata'?Why are texts often considered to be interpretable in them selves, with context only being added later, or called in to resolve difficult parts?In this section I identify three m etaphors (functioning as assum p tions) that possibly contributed to the shape of New T estam ent scholarship.2.1 H istory a s 'backdrop'In his discussion about the 'stages' o f the interpretive process (as specifically related to the New T estam ent), M arshall (1977b:12) inform s us th at '[a] third stage in u n d erstan d in g is concern ed with background.It m ay be useful to know som ething about the geography...A knowledge of the...author of the G ospel and his intended audience will help us to appreciate the point of the story.Much of this can be found fairly simply from reference books' (my italics).ISSN 0259 9422 -HTS 49/1 <( 2 (I<f93) 'Background studies' and New Tcslamcnl intcrpretalioo T he underlying conception of historical context is obvious; It is som ething like a backdrop to an im age, unproblem atic in itself, possibly useful for the 'task of eluci dation' (M arshall 1977a: 126).Historical 'evidence' (background studies) when used like a w ood-w orker uses nails, m akes context into a m ere step w ithin the in terp retive process, accorded a role th at is rated anything from im portant, or even neces sary, to merely interesting and optional.In the sam e volum e th a t M arshall co ntributed to, we find D ra n e's (1977:117)    statem ent: 'It is...essential for the stu d en t of the New T estam en t to be thoroughly fam iliar with the background of religious thought against which it was w ritten' (my italics).The New T estam ent is as much first century religious thought as oth er texts from the time.T o think otherwise is to make silly distinctions, such as betw een the O ld T estam en t and contem porary (first century) Judaism(as D rane 1977:117-119   does).Im agine M atthew 's (or Jesus') surprise at being inform ed that they w ere not Jews but exponents of the Old Testam ent! T he w hole id ea of context as a fixed, determ inative background to which dis putes concerning m eaning can appeal is m isplaced.F or exam ple, w here does one draw the line when delineating the context of a text?'Each text reflects the coloring o f its context, and each context the coloring of its ring of contexts' (B arnhart 1980: 504).C ontext is just m ore text, ju st as much in need o f in terp re ta tio n and in fact co nstituted by a sim ilar configuration of opaque factors th a t pro d u ced the am b i guities and concerns it is being called on to clarify.T he appeal to context does not resolve controversy about meaning but shifts the research to a larger and m ore p ro b lem atic area; it g e n erates the search for the relevant context.W hile m eaning is context-bound, context is boundless.T his is som ething lawyers know well; context is in principle infinitely expandable, lim ited only by th eir resourcefulness, th eir clients*^ re sources, and the patience o f the judge.T here is always m ore evidence th a t may b e a r in som e way o r an o th e r on the m eaning of the act or w ords at issue...C ontext is o ften th ought o f as a given, b u t lawyers

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tualised.Highly influential has been the linear.Sender -R eceiver model (o r m eta phor).This is by far the most favoured model used to account for hum an com m uni cation.It goes back toShannon & W eaver (1949 -though, like m ost influential ideas, with roots going back much further according toSperber & W ilson 1986:5-6)    and becam e particularly w idespread through the work of various scholars.A signi ficant motive in the developm ent and adoption of the m odel appears to be the fact that it was taken from electronic com m unication engineering in an effort to em ulate the hard sciences.In this p erspective, hum an co m m unication is b roken up into three domains, which however much qualified, rem ain separate.T he success of the m etaphor witnesses to the fact that similarities exist, but it rem ains a m etaphor.D escriptions and analyses based on the source-channel-receiver m odel have not yielded sufficiently integrative explanations o f com m unication.It is not so much wrong as inappropriate or insufficient.The m etaphor creates an expectation a n d /o r a discourse of successful method.The in terp reter must 'overcom e' various obstacles ( 'noise', 'in terfe ren c e ') and solve problem s by using the right 'm eth o d ' or 'instru m en ts'.If you cannot un d erstan d th e text, it is not because the au th o r was an in com petent com m unicator; the fault is yours, because you have not invested enough intellectual labour/used the correct m eth o d /ap p lied a p ro p er reading technique (cf M cG ee 1990; G ouran 1985:108).T o study hum an com m unication we need som ething that differs from the engi n e e r's m easuring instrum ents (see the im p o rtan t discussion by Sless 1986:10-23).W hen studying ancient docum ents the research er actually functions as both tran s m itter and receiver within the com m unicative event.In o th er words, the transm is sion m etaphor deceives with regard to the active role that the in terp reter plays when in terp retin g , 'creatin g ' the a u th o r and the a u d ito r/a u d ie n c e .O n e does n o t first study the author, then the text and then the audience (or in any oth er order).One can only look at the audience with the help of the text -a text construed by the in terpreter.We only have a text-author and a text-audience.Viewing the world as a neutral space in which discrete entities (objects, beings etc) occasionally act or exert influence on one a n o th er is necessary in o rd er to pic ture com m unication in term s of a lin ear sequence of events (X acts, Y reacts, X reacts to Y's reaction and so forth).This picture o f neutral space within which we act facilitates the image o f m eaning that is encapsulated (tran slated ) in stuff (ges Background studies' and New Tcslamcnl interpretation tures, sounds, objects) which can be untangled or decoded.But the researcher ju d ges the perform ance(s) of the sen d er/receiv er on the basis of o n e's own u n d erstan ding o f language and history.O ne does not e n te r a n eu tral space, one is already part of the process, as much constructed and constructing as the o th er parties.'T ransm ission of inform ation' models usually m ake com m unication som ething clear and straightforw ard, ignoring or simplifying the inherent instability of hum an com m unication.They also often fail because of an underlying idea of disem bodied inform ation (which can somehow be extracted from the medium ), and linear, causal m odels fail because they alm ost always omit the com plexities and interrelated n ess o f the many com m unicative elem ents which are most crucial for understanding h u m an behaviour.
the distinction betw een micro and m acro context.Noting the distinction betw een the subpart of the universe of discourse as context of an utterance and the discourse shared, though often helpful, should not disguise the relationships and interrelation ships of aspects designated micro context.Thus, not only should the distinction be refined, but one should ask about the connections betw een facets o f a supposed con text, how they 'change' when 'm oved' from m acro to micro level, and how aspects mutually define and determ ine each other.In attem pting to rem ain aw are o f these difficulties, f suggest distinguishing betw een setting, environm ent and encyclopaedic ISSN 02.S9 ^2 2 -HTS 49/1 é, 2 (1993) 'Background studies* and New Testament interpretation fram e.It can be argued, in principle, that 'the proper context of anything w ritten is everything w ritten'.But when a text is being understood, 'its actual context is much m ore narrow and far less textual than that.It is a fusion o f the relevant segm ents of the read er's and the text's respective horizons, that is to say, a fusion of as much of the re a d e r's intersubjective lifeworld with as much o f the text's intertextual context as becom es subjectivley m obilized in a p artic u lar read in g e x p e rien c e'(M ernadi   1988:751).In practice only a finite and d iscrete set of cultural 'im p erativ es' need to be treated as implicatives within a specific discourse.W hen describing a context it is im portant to b ear in mind that context presup poses 'a statem ent of the inner logic, the interior structure, of the thing subject to in terpretation' (N eusner 1986:ix).A fter all, the major clues to the context of a text 36 HTS 49/1 * 2 (1993) P J J Botha arise from interaction with the text itself.The construai of the text should proceed pari passu with the construction of its context (Seung 1980:91).T aking a cue from D undes (1964), I have elsew here illustrated how the 'tex tu re', the linguistic struc tures, of M ark's gospel, a reading of the text and a possible historical setting for the gospel interact and interrelate: M ark is a dram atic story narrated in a style not un like oral-form ulaic composition by an itinerant 'teacher' (B otha 1991, 1992b).3.2 T hem atic knowledge (or; comprehensive narratives) A m ajor quality o f an in terp re ter is a store of historical knowledge -knowledge of the events, beliefs and values m aking up cultures and periods.O ne does not b e com e an in te rp re te r by merely learning a m ethod; scholarship and sensitivity, wide reading and m em bership of a critical culture (com munity) are called for.
that one needs packages of them atic knowledge, o r what S p erb er & W ilson (1986: 236) call 'encyclopaedic schem as' o r 'encyclopaedic e n trie s' (S p e rb e r & W ilson 1986:87-89).T his type of know ledge is relatively abstract, and is developed from many other settings involving oth er particular goals and actions.It provides connec tions betw een story elem ents and connections to related inform ation in memory.T his process o f draw ing on re la te d know ledge to add to explicit inform ation, to m ake inferences, is vital to com prehending both textual m aterial and natural expe riences.ISSN 0259 9422 = UTS 4 9 /1 & 2 (1993) 'Background studies' and New Tcstamcnl interpretation Such 'packages' of historical knowledge are usually organised in narrative form: For exam ple the conventional concept o f Hellenism has as plot the m ovem ent and success o f 'G re e k cu ltu re' (particularly G reek language) and contains ch aracters such as A lexander the G reat.A dopting term inology from G oldstein's discussion o f the philosophy o f history(G oldstein 1976:140-143), we can distinguish betw een the infra-and superstructures of these 'narratives'.The superstructure refers to the various packages of them atic knowledge, the 'visible' results of historical work.The infrastructure of a 'bundle' of historical knowledge refers to the models and techniques employed by the historian in the course of the p roduction of the su p erstru ctu re, from the first acquaintance w ith the h istorical d a ta to the end result.T he reaso n for alluding to infra-and superstructure is to em phasise the connection betw een them.R etu rn in g to o u r exam ple, H ellenism , we note th at the conventional su p e r structure follows from a political infrastructure, com bined with a 'g reat m an' con cept of history.W orking with a religiously and sociologically d eterm in ed in fra structure w ould lead one to characterise H ellenism by a distinctive worldview and cosmology (scientific -for the time -and fatalistic), the developm ent of a distinctive m onarchically based socio-econom ic system and a particular attitu d e tow ards w ri ting and literacy (on these issues seeJones 1964; M artin 1987:6-12; U lansey 1989:   46-94, 125; Lentz 1989).O ur perception of the w idespread value of the G reek lang uage is probably overrated(M acM ullen 1990; H arris 1989:175-190).3 3 EnvironmentO ne can im agine a sort o f interm ediate level betw een one's 'encyclopaedic entries' and the text setting: contextual effects and information at the level of what could be relevant and what the sphere of reference should be.33.1 Normal pragmatic context (the to be expected)G uessing the setting of a comm unicative event is in a sense .sayingsom ething about w hat one considers to be usual or normal for such a supposed situation.A concept of a situation and a p erception of norm ality of perform ance in such a situation are in separable in a pragm atic sense; one can n o t be d eterm ined w ithout determ ining the other at the same time.Thus, thinking about a setting involves reflection about an ideal setting.It is this norm ality of the pragm atic context that serves as the fun dam ental prem ise in o u r inferential knowledge of the sp eak er's or a u th o r's inten tion, or construction of meaning(Seung 1980).ality of the pragm atic context is always culture bound; both what is and w hat is not norm al in the perform ance of speech acts and th eir situations, are determ ined by the conventions o f culture.The recognition of pragm atic contexts al ways depends on our knowledge of historio-cultural contexts.Such a recognition d e pends on a description of socio-cultural conventions.3.3.2Description (what was it like?)T he spectres of m isapprehension and mystification haunt the in terp re ter u n relen tingly.O ne can only exorcise them with an attem pt at authentic description (R unciman 1983:223-300).Now, it is very difficult to say w hat is authentic, although the basic idea is obvious: O ur descriptions should also be valid for those we are describ ing.T he o ften voiced d esp air at such an e n te rp rise reflects an illeg itim ate co n ception of 'telling it "from the native's point of view"'.In seeking to uncover such a perspective, G eertz (1983:69-70) counsels us to oscillate restlessly betw een the sort of exotic m inutiae (lexical an ti theses, categorical schemes, m orpho-phonem ic transform ations) that make even the best ethnographies a trial to read and the sort of swee ping characterizations...that m ake all but the most pedestrian of them som ew hat im plausible.H opping back and forth betw een the whole conceived through the parts th at actualize it and the parts conceived through the whole that motivates them , we seek to turn them , by sort of intellectual perpetual motion, into explications of one another.In short, accounts of o th er peoples' subjectivities can be built up w ithout recourse to pretensions to m o re-than-norm al capacities for ego effacem en t and fellow feeling.N orm al cap acities in these re spects are, of course, essential, as is th e ir cultivation, if we expect people to tolerate our intrusions into their lives at all and accept us as persons worth talking to.A well-known example of what difference the authentic-for-them principle makes, is the description o f first century Judaism .S anders(1977:33-238)  in particular, has done im portant work on how many New T estam ent scholars simply distorted rabbi nic Judaism to suit their own purposes, without an effort to understand it on its own terms.A sim ilar m anifestation can be detected in descriptions o f em peror worship, which is usually characterised, with a stunning disregard for the ancients' sincere re ligious intentions, as political exploitation(B otha 1989).ISSN 0259 9422 -HTS 49/1 <t 2 (1993) W orking with ancient docum ents necessarily im plies that any m isapprehension or mystification in a source can only be corrected in the light of o th er sources.This makes it m ore complex, but not necessarily m ore difficult than interpretive descrip tions involving contem poraries.Sins (to be avoided of course) in such an activity are: incom pleteness, oversim plification and ahistoricity; suppression, exaggeration and ethnocentricity.333 Picturing the function of socio-cultural knowledge W hen one is considering the usefulness a n d /o r validity of com ponents o f a possible context, it helps to visualise how o n e's socio-cultural and historical knowledge func tions.1 think one's contextual knowledge can function in one or m ore of the following ways.It can be seen as 'codes' constraining content and form , and .specifyingrules for the particular event, genre, program , etcetera.Or, it can be pictured to function like scripts (or schem ata).This way the participants are seen as actors 'acting' out a script.O ne is then in effect describing underlying expectations.Also, contextual m atters can be .seenas strategies for associating knowledge: cues for relating texts, events and artifacts to each other.O ne endeavou rs to define the way one uses historical know ledge in o rd e r to gain a sense of realism .It also helps one to be careful: W e n eed to look at how choices are determ ined in and by particular situations.O ften, as individuals, people com m unicate in ways not constrained by their cultural backgrounds.Interaction is always 'em erg en t', th a t is, com m unicative strateg ies are n eg o tiated am ong p a rti cipants and seldom a copy of the norm al pragm atic context.

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always encased in a com m unicative matrix.C onsequently, com m unication indeed encom passes everything that is human.Such grand scale thoughts aside, what is dif two rocks next to each o th e r and two hum ans within a relationship is that hum ans comm unicate.This is a basic stance not w ithout consequences.The focus moves from texts as such (as if they could be objects in them selves) to the com m unication events of which texts are part.Usually, this m eans a focus on the people in, around, behind and created by texts.Such a focus is also pragmatic.Pragm atist philosophy and theory attacks reductionist and dualistic ontologies and epistem ologies.It utilises the concept of coordination: H um an behaviour is on going, interconnected activities, which involves divisions o f labour and functioning factors within a vast complex.Com m unication always depends on processes o f refe rence and the circumstances of experience.It is in and through com m unication that hum an societies are created and m aintained.C om m unication and the processing of inform ation are not merely 'aspects' of hum an societies; rath er, societies would be totally im possible w ithout com m unication in one form or a n o th e r (G oody 1973; M aines 1984).T he challenges I have in mind arise from W estern cu ltu re's general a b an d o n m ent of uncritical positivism as philosophy, from the com prehensive n atu re of our in terests as expressed in key term s like com m unication and rhetoric, and from a growing distrust of linear, mechanical conceptions of com m unication.T he single, most pressing challenge is to find ways o f understanding and study ing hum an com m unication as a highly complex, transactional process.F ar too little of our research views 'all parties to a persuasive transaction as changeable and inter active ra th e r than conceiving of persuasion as a process w hereby the persuader(s) act and the targets react' (M iller, Burgoon & Burgoon 1984:456).Interpretive stu dies must reflect on the ways in which all classes of variables affecting group proces ses are interconnected.H um an com m unication must be conceptualised as interplay of forces with variable consequences for different, individual, situated persons, and those problem s call for re-exam ination of som e basic concepts used in our scholar ship.C om m unication is not so much like a transaction, but m ore like 'behavioral m anagem ent of co-presence' (cf Ciolek 1986:49; A rnold & Frandsen 1984).com m unication there is no vantage point from which all things are visible.This contrasts with the electronic transm ission m etaphor which locates the researcher outside like an objective, all-seeing observer (cf the diagram by Lategan 1984:3).R esearchers are like the figures in a landscape: W e can see only what is before us and must imagine what is hidden from view.Though we can and do share ISSN 0259 9422 -HTS 4 9 /1 A 2 (1993) discourses, o u r position in the 'lan d scap e' (th a t is, the n otions we a re d e v elo p ing/have about the text) determ ines what we see.This realisation provides us with a powerful critical facility.O ne realises that all in terp retatio n is m an-m ade, and can be criticised and im proved.O ne also realises that it is im perative to see oneself as within history, part of the very processes one is trying to understand.We are part of o u r interpretations: Changing the signs them selves and bringing new signs into existence.O ne is not looking upon the works of others, but is p art of the com m unication with the very thing one wants to scrutinise.In connection to this G eertz (1983:16) provides a valuable rem inder:T o see ourselves as others see us can be eye-opening.To see others as sharing a n atu re with ourselves is the m erest decency.But it is from the far m ore difficult achievem ent of seeing ourselves am ongst others, as a local example of the forms human life has locally taken, a case am ong cases, a world am ong worlds, that the largene.ss of mind, w ithout which objectivity is self-congratulation and tolerance a sham, comes.Beware of 'the m ethod' stead, as have been eloquently argued by many, we should cultivate a pragm atic ap proach.Clearly, theoretical reflection is im portant.It can and does throw light on p rac tice, in the sense o f contributing to self-consciousness about definitions, categories and boundaries(L entricchia 1985).But th ere is no project th at can govern in te r p re ta tio n s o f p a rtic u la r texts by ap p ealin g to an acco u n t o f (all and any) in te r p retatio n in general.W hat we do have are rules of thum b, so to speak.R ules of thu m b cannot be form alised because the conditions of th eir application vary with the circum stances o f the ongoing practices of interpretation; as those circum stances change, the very m eaning of the rules (the instructions they are understood to give) changes too.Any attem pt to form ulate a com prehensive m ethod in the sense of a device that will rep licate o p eratio n s and results (like m ath em atical theory: form al, abstract, general, invariant) has always failed and will never be successful.An exam ple of42 UTS 4 9 /1 A 2 (1993)such a m ethod is the goal o f C hom skian theory: the construction o f 'a system of rules that in som e explicit and w ell-defined way assigns structu ral descriptions to sentences', w here 'explicit' m eans m echanical (like an algorithm ) and the assigning is done not by the in terp re ter but by the system (Chomsky 1965:8).T heoretical re flection in this sense strives for the impossible.It will never succeed simply because the data and the formal 'laws' necessary to its success will always be developed from within the context o f which they are supposedly independent.AsRorty (1982:162)    puts it, '[t]here are no essences anywhere in the area.T here is no wholesale, epistemological way to direct, or criticize or underw rite the course of inquiry...It is the vo cabulary of practice rath er than o f theory...in which one can say som ething useful about truth.' course m ed iates(cf Fow ler 1986:86).'Texte sind nicht i.solierte GroBen, sondern sind in einen groB eren Z usam m enhang e in g e b e tte t'(E gger 1987:34; De V illiers   1984:66).W hatever is created by an au th o r (the w riter/sp e a k e r) is not the whole being of the text.N othing is possible w ithout the pre-existing discourse which is rooted in social, econom ic, political and ideological conditions.C o m prehension does not proceed from straightforward analysis of linguistic structure.A text is part of a complexly structured process or event; its structural form, by social sem iotic p ro cedures, constitutes a representation of a world, characterised by activities and sta tes an d values.O utside a com m unicative event (in which it is c re a te d /fic tio n a li se d /p ro je c te d for sure) a text is a m ere artifact.A text is a com m unicative in ter action betw een its producer and its consumers, within relevant social and institutio nal contexts (cf Fow ler 1986; D e B eaugrande & D ressier 1981).T o adopt the very descriptive dictum of L otm an (1990:63-64), a text is a m eaning-generating m echa nism in a relationship o f m utual activation with its readership (cf Lotm an 1990:11-111).

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this split and the integration of the study o f how texts as part of a p ro cess is built into the social phenom ena are what various interdisciplinary enterprises a tte m p t to do, and w hat I w ould like to see New T e sta m e n t scholars tak e very seriously.The need is for extensive and critical working knowledge of a very wide ranging spectrum of interests in the contextual web.A m ere reading of texts (even ost of them , w ere one endow ed with superhum an skills and energy), o r collec ting of 'facts' is not yet contextualising, nor understanding.O ne cannot oppose text to context, o r reduce text to a function o f context, nor see a text as som ething caused by context.In this regard 1 found B arthes' discussion concerning myths as signs helpful (B arthes 1973:120-138 -B arthes is not addressing the issue of text and context as such).W e tend to think o f the relationship betw een context and text as one o f 'equality'.But the relationship is one of 'equivalence'.

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It m ust be stressed th at this proposal concerns a point o f view, not a m ethod, but a way of looking at things.The work of B arthes(1973), in particular, deserves to be m entioned as an exam ple o f a sem iotic perspective.Published originally in 1957, Mythologies has been one of the most influential texts determ ining the study of culture.It is an evocative work; a collection which, for the most, consists of critical review articles exploring the m eaning of representations or things of popular culture in F rance.B arthes offers readings o f 'texts' such as wrestling, soap-pow ders, m ar garine, cars and news photographs and dem onstrates that these texts can be used to conjure up a w orld o f myth and paradox and give unexpected com prehension of hum an activities.L ooking at words, things and events as standing-for can yield a rich harvest of understan d in g and insight.Sem iotics is concerned with relations: how, when one statem ent is m ade, others are necessarily implied.4.6The 'problem' of subjectivityClearly, when working with dated texts, with persons long dead, we are engaging in a hypothetical and im aginative construction w hen we 'com m unicate'.In a very real sense we have nothing but silent docum ents, apparently forcing us into a vicious cir cle.T he fact that in terpretatio n /u n d erstan d in g takes place at all points to the role stereotyped knowledge plays.'W hen reading a text, people utilize their prior know ledge of the subject m atter covered in the text' (A bbot, Black & Smith 1985:179) -a Background studies' and New Tc.stamcnl intcrprclation phenom enon that is philosophically described by the concept Vorverstandnis.The ex istence o f a p re u n d e rsta n d in g do es not 'm ake the d ialo g u e d o g m atic, fo r in genuine dialogue p reu n d erstan d in g can be brought to consciousness and checked against its ram ifications in term s of the subject m atter itself (Hoy 1978:77).But this is to move the problem only one step backward as one must still determ ine what the subject m atter at stake is, against which one can test the preunderstandings.H ow ever, for a large p art, the subject m atter of a text is a practical affair, concerning genre, structure, questions addressed and created by the text, elim inating irrelevant cultural references, constructing argum ents for one's choices and so forth.
and consistent historical work is clearly needed, but also about o n e's own position, perspectives and aims.'Self-reflection and a clearer self-understanding are critical if the interpretive process is to realize its essential possibilities...In o rd er to u n d er stand the past, it is necessary to try to u n derstand o n e's own presuppositions and prejudgm ents in o rd e r to realize how these m ediate o n e 's percep tio n o f the p ast'(Hoy 1977:viii, 94).In short, the circular activity of one's reasoning seems vicious only ...when we forget how often...assum ptions and the background beliefs th at en g en d er them undergo change in response to the interpretive process itself...We move from part to whole and back again, adjusting prelim inary expectations and background beliefs as we go along to m ake the ex p lan a to ry p ro b lem easie r.T h e fact th a t this process so m etim es lead s us to ab an d o n a ttitu d e s ab o u t o u rselv es and o u r w orld we would otherw ise never think to question -and would not even think to include at the outset in a list of relevant background as sum ptions -shows that the herm eneutical circle...is a helix.(Stout1986:106; B arnhart 1980:510-511)    Secondly, the basic thing about in terp retatio n is a com m itm ent to not m aking the text into a m irror, or falling into ventriloquism .T rue in terp re tatio n concerns the fundam ental acceptance of the possibility o f the differentness of a n o th er's m ean ings: Som eone else speaks.We should extend this ethical com m itm ent to dem ocra tic values to a basic stance, making it a habit, or b etter still, a culture.'This is to be open to encounters with o th er actual and possible cultures, and to make this o p en ness central to its self-image.This culture is an ethnos which prides itself on its sus- [mind   independent]  facts"'(Putnam 1981:ix).T here is an extrem ely close connection b e tween the notions of truth, rationality and values; betw een 'objectivity' and o n e's his toricity, not a cancellation of one by the o th er (on these issues seeB ernstein 1983;   Putnam 1981:103-216; Raval 1986:121, 103; H ernadi 1988:752).T he realisatio n that we are fully and com pletely enclosed by o u r history and that all o u r know ledge is m ed iated know ledge is a challenge: 'O u r intellect and understanding are bounded only by the limits o f the structures we can invent, and... any lim itation of intellect is a lim itation of inventiveness...W hatever limits there are to hum an im agination would seem to be those we have placed on ourselves by cul ture, training, and experience.We live by the learned images and the myths in our heads'(C ooper 1980:14-15).PJJBoOia 5. F -R A M IN G IH E TKXT 5.1 Dynamic fram ing versus static context W hat I have been working up to should be fairly clear by now.Interpretation is contextualising.Talking about a text is talking about its context, and the context-text continuum is a m atter of imaginative construction.
Criticism (in the sense of striving for understanding) deals with how signs are consti tuted (fram ed) by various di.scursive practices, institutional arrangem ents, systems of value, and sem iotic mechanisms.The expression fram ing the sign has several advantages over context: it rem inds us th at fram ing is som ething we do; it hints o f the fram e-up ( 'falsifying evidence b efo reh an d in o rd e r to m ake som eone ap p ea r guilty'), a m ajor use of context; and it eludes the incipient positivism o f 'co n tex t' by alluding to the sem iotic function o f fram ing in art...A lthough analysis can seldom live up to the com plexities o f fram ing and falls back into discussion o f context, with its heuristically sim pli fying presum ptions, let us at least keep before us th e notion o f fra ming -as a fram e for these discussions.
continues by asking what the goodness (in the sense of truthfulness, validity, etc) of an in teipretation is relative to.Clearly, the answ er is the interests, purposes, and background beliefs of interpreters.'The idea is to keep the various purposes of interpretive practice in view, not to propose m axim izing utility (or anything else, for th a t m a tte r) as a p u rp o se for every oc casion.'B ecause we are p art of the contextualising en terp rise, because cognition p re supposes the principle of relevance, we are forced to confront ourselves.The ideal to be historical, to let others speak -like all other interpretive ideals -turns back on us.T h ere is a whiplash to o ur in terp re tatio n s in the sense that o ur results ask to w hat interests and purposes our efforts are relevant.O n e's ethics, desires and atti tude to o th e r persons and m ankind in general are, in o th e r w ords, entw ined with on e's interpretive strategies, one's framings.C onsequently, we should move beyond a naive quest for the m eaning of a text, or the dispute abo ut the right m ethod, tow ards a struggle over w hat m akes these texts worth caring about and what kind of society to strive for.These m atters d ete r m ine our interpretiv e purposes and aims.If we do not w ant hierarchical, a u th o ritarian societies engaging in violence and psychological terrorism (a device that the church likes to resort to -C upitt 1985:48-121), nor w ant to raid texts in o rd e r to confirm an irrelevant metaphysics, we have already m ade im portant decisions with regard to 'm ethod' and interpretive aims.Having chosen for an open, 'dem ocratic'society (this must not be taken in a cheap, count-the-votes sense -seeRorty 1989Rorty  ,   1990)), the need for historical, contextual interpretation is em phasised.A striving to let those authors really say what they intended is a criterium made relevant, am ongst many o th er reasons, by my own context, w here so many people have been abused.O f course, a different context and o th er aims could change the relevant criteria determ ining a g o o d /p ro p er interpretation and norm ative aims.Be that as it may, at issue is that o u r ethical and political conceptions are part of that which we bring to the text, and in terp retatio n , if we w ant it to be any good, forces those attitudes into our m ethodologies and aims.Explicitness about relevance ne cessarily asks for discussion and criticism of our interests, purposes and ideals.6.SUMMARYNew T estam ent research is a m ulti-faceted and complex discipline.It is a historical d iscip lin e, in a com p reh en siv e sense, co n ce rn e d with th e social, psychological, ex p erien tial and religious m atters o f the p eo p le and th e ir activities th a t started Christianity.n s of their ventures and com m unications should dem onstrate th a t to re fe r to th e social and co n tex tu al use of w ords is not to sim plify in te r p retatio n or to cut down am biguity.In cu rren t critical debates, invocation of the social character of texts and of the need for reference to context often turn out to be a reductive move, based on the assumption that contextual determ ination will in fact produce final m eaning.Recour.se to social attitudes and usage, o r to authorial in tentions, or to underlying cultural scripts or codes, simply gives access to that which in them selves are divided and m ulti-layered and gen erate m ore com plex explana tions and realistic perceptions.H istory opens com plexities rath er than narrowing down to univocal meanings.O ne cannot oppose text to context, as if context w ere som ething o th er than m ore text.Context is in itself just as complex and in need of interpretation.R eference to social usage does not end exploration of meaning, it is initiated by such reference.W hat 1 have been trying to say is that background studies are not for filling in missing parts-of the puzzle.Interpretation is to engage in com m unication, and com m unication is an im m ensely complex and involved process.Instead o f using the m etaphor of transm ission (or a derivative) I would suggest the m etap h o r o f -dyouare-now-here-map.It effectively acknowledges that the researcher is inside the p ro cess, that one has a point of view (for instance, now looking at author-text, then at reader-text, etc) th at is lim ited according to various factors, and one has to shift point of view to change these limits.It also em phasises that one is feeling o n e's way, exploring, looking from the inside, so to speak, instead of knowing and looking at everything from above.'Tospeak of the m eaning of the work is to tell a story of reading'(C uller 1982;   35).O r, in my context, m aking a map ab o u t w here one was and how one got to w here one now happens to be.Most em phatically, I do not w ant to claim a new m ethod, but ra th e r to extricate our in terp retiv e activities from an obsession with m ethod.Instead of asking about the right m ethod, or objective results, it is m ain tained that the question of attitudes (such as a dem ocratic com m itm ent) determ ines m ethods and relevance of interpretation.Consequently, less negative and insulting activities, but m ore serious straining towards true contextual understanding.A criti cal comm unity is b e tte r than a knowing one.A critical community with good m an n ers b e tte r still.A nd, the best of w orlds w ould be one th a t is also historically minded.I have provided an arg u m en t for an e la b o ra te and com plex interw eaving of questions and possible explanations concerning texts and their contexts which sees influences bouncing back and forth in intricate and unpredictable patterns.