Mark 13 predicts that certain events will occur literally within the generation of Jesus contemporaries, and todays reader recognizes that some of these events have not taken place. The reader therefore appropriates the text as a false configuration of the world because it describes the world differently from how it is. However, the hermeneutics of Paul Ricoeur enables a reader to appropriate the text as a presentation of truth. His argument for textual autonomy supports the contention that a texts meaning is not limited to what the author intended and the original readers perceived. In new reading contexts, the meaning that comes from the text itself creates an evocative dialectic between the readers lived world and the world description of the text. Although Mark 13 was originally understood literally, todays audience is able to read it as metaphor. Metaphor is not a rhetorically attractive literary trope; it is a transgression of language codes and categories. Through its association of previously unrelated concepts, metaphor creates new, multiple meanings and changes the linguistic structures within which it operates. Metaphor is able to present truth, not as a verifiable presentation of the world as it is perceived by the reader, but as a manifestation of the world in a new way. The reader recognizes this truth only as she is willing to engage with the text without imposing her preconceptions upon it. Mark 13, as it is read by todays reader, functions as metaphor because of the double dissonance first between the configured world of the text and the lived world of the reader and second between claim that Jesus is able to predict when the events will take place (v. 30) and the assertion that he is not able to do so (v. 32). One option for todays reader to appropriate the metaphor of Mark 13 as truth is a perception of the presence in the world of forces that challenge and subvert powers which appear to be dominant, and which deceive, destroy, and persecute.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:PITT/oai:PITTETD:etd-12102009-124820 |
| Date | 17 June 2010 |
| Creators | de Vries, Peter Cornelius |
| Contributors | S. Anthony (Tony) Edwards, Alexander Orbach, George Taylor, Adam Shear, Dale Allison |
| Publisher | University of Pittsburgh |
| Source Sets | University of Pittsburgh |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.library.pitt.edu/ETD/available/etd-12102009-124820/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to University of Pittsburgh or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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