Sárospataki Füzetek 20. (2016)
2016 / 2. szám - ARTICLES / STUDIEN - György Kustár: Ont he Slopes of Sinai - Some Hermeneutical Questions in Light of the Kabbalistic and Historical Critical Exegesis
On the Slopes of Sinai - Some Hermeneutical Questions cies and repetitions is overcome by redefining these terms as interruptions, refrains and correspondences between separate themes.83 3. Mystical, Narrative and Historical Approaches beyond the Hermeneutical Impasse? Though we are uncomfortable in many ways with the aggression of the purely historical and with the one-sidedness of the purely narrative view, the attempts made to harmonize the historical perspective with the final form of the text are also unconvincing. These reading techniques functionally move on separate dimensions, built upon distinctive presuppositions. They are models that are preoccupied with different stratum of the texts, according to their definition of the nature of the biblical text. In our estimation, they are applicable simultaneously, but not complementarily. What is of value for this present study, however, is the possible parallel between the narrative method and the Kabbalistic understanding of the text. The narrative-hermeneutical theory builds on the assumption of the unitary nature of the text and its complex reality as an organic domain that can be understood according to its own rules. Moreover, it speaks of the textual reality as playground. Hans-Georg Gadamer’s insights can be helpful to understand this concept in detail. The main analogy for the perception of art is the primacy of play over the consciousness of the player.84 More precisely, “the play fulfills its purpose only if the player loses himself in this play.”85 The act of play “absorbs the player into itself.”86 In this respect, the game incorporates the consciousness and “fills it with its spirit.” Gadamer’s theory is an ontological understanding of art, since, as he puts it, through the encounter with an artistic product an ontological disclosure takes place. Gadamer builds on the distinction between experience and abstraction as two alternative interpretative preoccupations.87 He apprehends experience as an incessant creative comprehension, a move toward the piece of art and its understanding by existential involvement. Through this existential entry into the subject itself, this repositioning of the self into the reality of the piece of art, a basic change occurs in the involved observer. The emphasis on the dimension of the piece of art as a reality 83 Cf. for instance the discussion about the fear scene in Ex 20:18-21, that is considered to be a linear continuation of the encounter scene of 19:20-25 by historical critiques. He explains the problem away by emphasizing the common'nearness'theme of the two sections. (Ravndal Hauge: The Descent from the Mountain, 45.) The basic incompatibility of the disagreement with the historical view becomes evident when we realize that the two argumentations operate on different levels. In most recent studies, the historical question is astutely evaded, and replaced by the interpretation of the narrative's theological images and symbols. See e.g. Meyers: Exodus, 146ff. 84 Gadamer, Hans-Georg: Truth and Method, London, Sheed and Ward, 1975,94. 85 Ibid., 92. 86 Ibid., 94 (italics mine). 87 Thiselton: The Two Horizons, 296. The Gadamerian theory of art builds on Wilhelm Dilthey's differenciádon between the two epistemological standpoint of Art and Scientific fields (Wis- senchaft) arguing for separate methodology. 2016-2 Sárospataki Füzetek 20. évfolyam 47
