I expected my year in South Africa at the University of KwaZulu-Natal to be an inspiring and stimulating experience. This work is essentially the result of my experience of living in South Africa; without it, it could not have been produced in its actual form.
INTRODUCTION
HERMENEUTICAL FRAMEWORK
Introduction – Objective, Process, Influences, and Goal
- Objective and Aim of this Thesis: Interpretation of Ex 15:1–21
- Situation and Process: Contemporary Reading
- Personal Influences
- Goal: Contextual Interpretation and Application
The contemporary background of all interpretation enterprises is the background of the globalized world. Yet the reader and interpreter of the Bible who is primarily in mind in the context of this thesis is a trained exegete.
The Hermeneutical Situation – a Historical and Hermeneutical Problem
- Ancient Text, Modern Reader – Introduction
- Ancient Text
- Modern Reader and the Purpose of Exegesis
- Conclusion
The "modern reader" is a twenty-first century person living in his/her contemporary context. However, all readers stand in a diachronic chain of interpretive history with almost two millennia of use of the Bible in its canonical form.
Problem Analysis – General and Specific
- Introduction
- Hermeneutical Pathways: Theory and Strategies
- a. Level of Reader
- b. Level of Text
- c. Level of Context – Purpose, Intention, and Outcome
- d. Bringing Together the Levels
- Result, Goal, Conclusion
The problems described are traditionally classified under the heading of the intentionality question in its three dimensions intentio auctoris, intentio lectoris and intentio operi; these terms refer respectively to "the world of the author", "the world of the text" and "the world of the audience". A critical focus on the world behind the text can help to understand references in the texts or their production situations.
My Hermeneutical Model
- Bi-focal Approach within the Tri-polar Model
- My Personal Commitment
Interpretation and understanding thus mean making sense of the text based on the reader's context. The result of the interpretive effort must thus fit into the reader's conceptual system and understanding of the world.
METHODOLOGY OF RHETORICAL CRITICISM
- Introduction
- Preliminary Definition
- History and Development of the Method
- Steps in Rhetorical Criticism
- Goals
- Principles
- Relationship to Other Methods of Biblical Interpretation
- Definition
- Actuality of Rhetorical Criticism?
However, this study is concerned with rhetorical criticism in the context of the Hebrew Bible. What she writes in Muilenburg's opus about the evolution of method also applies to her own work: Rhetorical criticism 'does not identify a comprehensive system. Yet parallels from the Bible and ancient Near Eastern literature provide material for comparison.
Trible's guide, Rhetorical Criticism: Context, Method, and the Book of Jonah,104 published in 1994, provides comprehensive background information on the history of the method and its genetic and hermeneutical relationships with other methods of biblical interpretation. Therefore, rhetorical criticism “promises to combine three focuses on the author ('the world behind the text'), the discourse (the 'world of the text') and the reader (the 'world before the text'). "107. Methods that explore the process of reading as the production of meaning, including poststructuralism and reader criticism, focus on the "reader's world."
EXODUS 15:1–21 – HEBREW TEXT AND ENGLISH TRANSLATION
17 You brought them in and planted them on the mountain of your property, a place for your dwelling, which you have made, LORD! 19 When Pharaoh's horses with his chariot and his charioteers went into the sea, the LORD brought the waters of the sea back over them. 20 Then the prophet Miriam, Aaron's sister, took a tambourine in her hand; and all the women went out after her with tambourines and dancing.
STRUCTURAL AND STYLISTIC ANALYSIS OF EX 15:1–21
Ultimately, structural analysis seeks to show the structure and consistency of a literary unit and the ways in which this consistency is created through its literary elements. From here I moved on to the analysis of Ex 15:1–21, moving from more general considerations to the specific task of analyzing a piece of biblical poetry.
G.E. Watson’s approach to Hebrew poetry
Delimitation
The demarcation of the text under consideration, Ex 15:1–21, is clear and without dispute in the scholarly discussion.132 The antecedent verses Ex 14:31–32 function as closing notes to chapter 14 and summarize the complex narrative description of the crossing. of the Reed Sea and the drowning of the Egyptian army. The first verse of the relevant text, Exodus 15:1a, begins with Hebrew za'ä (’āz), which means "at that time" or "then", an adverb. Therefore, the half-verse "represents a secondary narrative framework"135 and "serves the dual purpose of connecting the poem with the preceding material and introducing the song."136 Then follows the announced song, the poetic section Ex 15:1b– 18.
Knight plainly.138 Now the theme is the wandering of Israel in the desert and the absence of (drinking) water. Up until chapter 18, the Israelites "struggle with 'crises in the wilderness.'"139 The change in content and scene is indicated by the accumulation of relevant lexical units denoting desert/wilderness, lack of drinking water, and bitterness, in vv. Thus, the end of the considered literary unit and the beginning of the next unit are clearly indicated with the help of narrative signals and content according to Moses 15:21.
Basic Structural Division – Formal Linguistic Division into the Narrative Frame and the Poetic Parts 52
- Review of Previous Research
- a. Two Main Sections
- b. Three or More Sections
- c. Conclusion of the Review
- My Own Delineation/Segmentation: Refrains, Stanzas, Strophes
- a. Introduction, Guidelines
- b. The Refrains
- c. The Stanzas
- d. Strophic Division
- d.a. Introit
- d.b. 1 st Stanza
- d.g. 2 nd Stanza
- d.d. 3 rd Stanza
- d.e. Coda
- Conclusion
We will examine these in the next section with a view to establishing a strophic division of the poem for this study. Spacing indicates the division of the poem into stanzas and choruses, indentation indicates strophic structure, which will be discussed below. The opening verse of Song of the Sea (v. 1b) has been identified as an introduction to the entire poem.
This couplet introduces the main theme of the song: Yahweh's triumph and incomparability. The motif of the power of God's hand and the motif of the defeat of the enemy are connected. The intro and coda as well as the choruses tie the parts together.
Isolation of Poetic Devices
- General Remarks / Introduction
- Description of Poetic Devices in the Song of the Sea
- a. Structural Poetic Devices
- b. Non-structural (Stylistic-Aesthetic) Poetic Devices
- Major Motifs in the Song of the Sea
As the largest body of Hebrew poetry, the Song of the Sea is set forth in parallelism. The choruses in the Song of the Sea are distinguished by their design as stair parallelism, a specially structured type of parallelism in general. Structural poetic devices on the phonetic level such as sound repetition, alliteration, assonance or rhyme cannot be observed in the Song of the Sea.
The most noticeable stylistic feature of The Song of the Sea is the strong use of imagery. The non-structural stylistic devices of the poem work almost entirely on the semantic level. The poetic devices used in Song of the Sea indicate the main motifs.
Prose and Poetry – Interplay of Frame, Song, and Couplet
Given the storyline, the double song would have fit better into the entire story of the naval event, with the women's short, appellative victory song coming first and then being responded to by all the men singing the longer song. Historically, this might have been the order in which the lyrics were created,217 but perhaps it was not appropriate to have a female secondary character sing for Moses and the men. Rhetorically and in terms of its effect on the reader/audience, the song of Moses and the men is a full-fledged hymn about the glorious power and victory of God.
A shorter couplet sounds like a recap or a chorus or a catchphrase that you might hum after hearing the whole episode. Nevertheless, the order of the brief summary of the sea event, which follows the song and finally the couplet, seems somewhat odd in the context of Ex 15:1-21, as well as in the larger context of Ex 14-15.
Functional Synthesis
However, critical considerations of the form of the Song genre have not led to a generally accepted judgment by scholars. Analysis of the song with its prose framework and concluding couplet has already raised a notion of editorial discontinuity. Also, in their larger context relationships, they prove to have strong connections to the earlier narrative of the sea event.
Also, there is the vision of the future events of the migration to Canaan and the conquest of the land that provide forward links beyond the immediate narrative context. In the context of the rescue from the Egyptian army the mood is joyful and full of joy, rejoicing in God's victorious act and redeeming power. The main focus of the Song is on God, who alone is worthy of praise and who alone is powerful.
INTERPRETATION
- Aspects and Issues
- The Nature of Yahweh as the God of the Exodus
- Israel Among the Peoples
- The Land – Dispersion, Migration, Occupation, Inheritance
- Violence in the Song of the Sea and the Call for Peace
- Worship – Forms, Places, and Actors
- Gender – Men and Women in Event, Story, and Worship
- Historicity of the Exodus – Story and History
- A Theology of Hope and Justice and the Exodus
The description of Israel in the Song of the Sea corresponds to its characteristics in Exodus. The violence in Song of the Sea is in stark contrast to the Christian pacifist attitude. Song of the Sea is an act of worship in both form and content.
In the narrative context of the Sea Event, the Song is a spontaneous response from men and women with song, dance and instruments. The song of the sea appears as a living act of worship in celebration of God's wonderful act of saving the Israelites. The song refers to aspects in the history of the Israelites that will only happen later in the story (the Canaanite people, the mountain as the final destination).
CONCLUSION
A contextual interpretation of the results of the exegetical work posed the questions surrounding the biblical text from a contemporary Christian perspective. This part included recent ecclesiastical documents on the issue of violence and peace, as well as the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa and the German Basic Law in relation to the issues touched upon by the Song of the Sea. This step revealed helpful and liberating aspects of Ex 15 as well as oppressive and restrictive tendencies in the biblical text.
In its universal perspective of God's rule, the Garden Song aims at the establishment of peace and justice for all mankind and all creation. Christian churches see their responsibility as peacemakers in the light of the gospel of God's universal love. The song of the sea can with good reason be used as a voice that contributes to such a theology of hope and justice.
ABBREVIATIONS
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Contextual Exegesis in South Africa, i: Hartin, P.J. eds.), Text and Interpretation: New Approaches in the Criticism of the New Testament, Leiden: Brill. Teologi i (Syd)afrika: Hvordan fremtiden har ændret sig, i:. red.), Towards an Agenda for Contextual Theology. A Study in Socio-Theological Protest, i: Villa-Vicencio, Charles / De Gruchy, John (red.), Resistance and Hope.
Rhetorical Criticism: Context, Method, and the Book of Jonah (Old Testament Series), Minneapolis: Fortress Press. The Academy of the Poor: Toward a Dialogical Reading of the Bible, Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press. A selection of papers read at the 50th anniversary meeting of the Old Testament Society of South Africa OTWSA/OTSSA, Pretoria August 2007, Leiden: Brill, 247–267.
