The hermeneutic circle and the metaphor
25
Jun
We are betrayed when we think we know and we are still in the
initial stage of interpretation, the one that has not yet started a period process, to put our preconceptions in parentheses and start a real dialogue.
Metaphor helps us to bring, using poetic language, a relationship of belonging, to bring the world to poetry and to bring poetry to the world, because the poem projects a world in its ontological dimension, a reality that lies between the seeing as of the metaphor itself to be.
In addition to this function in the scope of semantic innovation, the unveiling of deeper reality, for example, explaining issues that are complex in order to allow this belonging, this proximity, is the function, for example, of parables, metonymy and synecdoche.
Examples of more marked parables are the biblical ones, associating the Kingdom of God with seeds that grow unnoticed, or with the mustard seed, a tiny seed that becomes a tree, this to say that there is a life-giving force in man, and in all men.
However, metaphor, through the use of figurative language, always runs the risk of remaining on the surface.
We exemplified last week the biblical passage in which Jesus went to the seaside work of Galilee and a threat threatens the boat and Jesus calms the storm (Mark 4: 35-41), but the subtlety of this passage is the metaphorical meanings of going the other bank and the storm itself.
Needed to explain deeper things and questioned the disciples fear of storms, and goes to the other side, meaning a more direct moment with the apostles, much of the analytical exegesis (see previous post) is fixed on an immediate understanding that go to the other shore means changing the route, when in fact beyond resting (Jesus slept in the storm), as deeper realities were explained directly to the apostles.
This is proven if we verify that later Jesus returns “to the other bank” where he again encounters a crowd (Mk 5:21-43), and in this crowd he is beyond an unknown woman who touches the master’s robe and is cured of a hemorrhage of 12 years old, there is a synagogue chief named Jairus.
Jairus had the daughter in the last few years, and while he was with Jesus he asked him to lay hands on his daughter, friends of Jairus arrived, who said that she died and Jesus says that she “only sleeps”, goes to Jairus’ house and performs the miracle pronouncing the words “Talitá cum”, the girl gets up.
This subtlety, an ordinary person and a synagogue leader, shows very clearly that in the “crowd” there are also religious authorities who want signs (the Jews want signs and the Greeks wisdom) and so the metaphor is complemented with “signs” and a “wisdom” inherent in Jesus.
