Introduction

INTRODUCTION Modern biblical exegesis attempts to determine the meaning of biblieal texts by means of both diachronie and synchronie methods. The diachronie methods, such as those of redaction criticism and tradition criticism and the historical-comparative methods, are aimed at an explanation of biblieal texts based on the study and reconstruction of oral and written geneses or traditions. The synchronie methods, such as form criticism and literary criticism, seek to provide an explanation of the text on the basis of the study of the genres to which a text belongs and the study of the stylistic and literary composition of the text. The meaning of the elements in a biblical text is thus defined on the basis of a comparison with elements in other biblieal texts. The commentary of Claus Westermann on the book of Genesis (Westermann 1974) may serve as an example of such modern exegesis. It is generally accepted as a good exegetie study whieh combines a diachronie, viz. tradition critical, and a synchronie, viz. form critical, approach. On the one hand he studies the text as it has come down to us, on the other hand he tries to explain the irregularities and contradictions in the text of Genesis on the basis of various traditions whieh (are supposed to) have preceded the formation of the text. The explanation of what he considers to be irregularities in the text is not based on the text itself, but on the notion that various traditions have supplied the textual elements and as a consequence have determined the meaning of the text. This type of exegesis, which attempts to explain the unproblematical parts of texts on the basis of their present state, and the ambiguous parts of these texts on the basis of earlier oral and written stages, is in my opinion often unsatisfactory and leaves the need for an approach whieh takes as its object the text in its final form and in relation to its (intended) functioning with respect to a certain reading public or religious community. In this approach it is not the previous history of the text or the correspondence with other (biblical) texts that is decisive for its meaning, but the textual elements in their interrelation with each other and the reader. This textual approach is related to certain developments in linguistics and literary theory, which from the beginning of this century have been aimed at formulating theories and analytical models concerning language, text and meaning. A closer examination of these theories shows that there are various traditions. Especially the tradition whieh runs from De Saus sure and Russian Formalism, via the Prague and Copenhagen linguistie schools, to French structuralist semiotics is of major importance for bib lical exegesis, since they focus on the totality of language and texts and have developed verifiable and formalized methods of analysis. In the field 3 of narrative texts, Algirdas Julien Greimas, more than anyone else, has been successful in developing a semiotic theory and analytical model. He formulated a theory of semiotics in which the process of the generation of meaning occupies a central place. According to hirn, people attribute meaning to the world and they translate the world into meanings. One of the ways in which they can do so is by means of written texts. Greimas describes the production of texts as a generative process and its result, the texts, as structures of coherent elements of meaning. When applied to biblical texts, the views of Greimas prove to be very useful and usable, but there are also shortcomings. In the first place his theory considers every reference of a language or a text to the historic con text and the extra-linguistic experience of life and vice versa as irrelevant. For Greimas, texts are not only autonomous, but also isolated entities. The inadequacy of this notion for biblical exegesis appears when one ana lyzes a biblical text of almost 3000 years ago. It is the very difference in the communicative context of past and present which makes clear that the generation of meaning is partly determined by the context. Now the sec ond inadequacy of structuralist semiotics with respect to biblical research also becomes apparent. Meaning is regarded purely as a characteristic of the text, and in this interpretation is considered to be independent of the reader. At the same time it is apparent that different readers attribute different meanings to one and the same text. The various structuralistic analyses also show that there is more than one way to give meaning to a text. The communicative context and the experience of li fe as weIl as the reading experience of the reader prove to play an important part in the generation of meaning or semiosis. In other words, and contrary to the assumption.s of structural semiotics, meaning proves to be the result of the interaction process between text and reader. Even though Greimas' semi otics has supplied many useful notions, it does not give sufficient credit to the reader's role in the process of giving meaning. It is necessary therefore to supplement this form of semiotics with the notions of a semiotics which does do justice to the dialectic process between text and reader. The semiotics of Umberto Eco introduced me to the semiotics of Charles Sanders Peirce, who is as yet relatively unknown in biblical exe gesis. However, I believe that Peirce offers the opportunity to open up the locked structuralist system of semiotics. As there has been no previous attempt to unlock structuralist semiotics by means of Peirce's semiotics, I have tried to supply this gap. Thus, in order to supplement the shortcom ings of both "standard-exegetical" and structuralist analyses of biblical texts, I have developed the foIlowing semiotics. In this "new" semiotic approach the attention is focussed exclusively on narrative texts and the process of giving meaning or semiosis of the reader in a dialectic relation with the text. This semiotics consists of an explanatory (theoretical) and 4 .

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