I made it to the end of the Heidegger chapter!  Hurray.  At that point I opted to call it a day, and save Gadamer for my text reading slot.

Towards the end of the chapter, I found a sentence that was worth pondering, both in relation to biblical hermeneutics and hermeneutics of historical artefacts:

'Prior to every interpretation, the hermeneutical manifests itself as "the bearing of message and tidings."'

Jean Grondin, Introduction to Philosophical Hermeneutics, New Have, Yale University Press, 1994 p. 104

citing Heidegger, On the way to Language tr. Peter D Hertz, New York, 1971 p. 29

Whilst not every 'message' or 'tiding' is 'good news,' and there presumably can be kakangelion (is there such a word?) as well as euangelion, this simple phrase seems to point to something important in interpretation - that it is concerned with releasing/realising the message (meaning and doing perhaps) of a text (or object, film, image, piece of music, set of data, etc).

Hermeneutics as euangelion - as gospel - liberating the message of hope - seems a good thing.  Maybe it balances, in a good way, the ubiquitous 'hermeneutic of suspicion' I have heard of to the point of tedium.

I was so going to be a good girl this evening and read a whole introductory chapter on Heidegger's contribution to philospohical hermeneutics.  And I tried so hard to make head or tail of 6 whole pages before I gave up trying to discern from context the meaning of one word central to making sense of the whole chapter.  And then I gave up and opted for Wikipedia for a starter for ten!  Clearly, and demonstrating I maybe grasped 0.01% of the words I read, my "fore-understanding" was inadequate - I did not have a subsumed interpretive framework to understand the German word, never mind its purpose: I didn't know what 'Dasein' meant or did, any more than a Martian would have known what 'door' (an example of fore-understanding cited) meant or did.  Having re-read the six pages three times and still not found a definition, or even a hint, I feel vindicated in my stupidity, but please nice kind author in an 'introuction to...' book, please define your words at first useage!

For the record, wikipedia and online dictionaries think it means 'existence' or 'presence' - a kind of 'being there' - and it probably doesn't translate very well into English.  Philosophy is hard enough when I understand the plain meaning of the words.  When I'm trying to get my head around how people understand understanding and interpret interpretation if I don't understand the words what hope have I got?!

Now I'll be good and attempt a few more pages before bedtime!

Over the weekend a new piece of civic art appeared in Dibley.  As a sculpture, I like it, though alas the local un-culturate have already climbed over it and adorned its facial features with lipstick.  It is, I suspect meant to mark the start of the village - except that it's about quarter of a mile too far south, being located on a large grassy triangle where it is indeed a prominent (potentially crash inducing) feature.  So what is it, you cry?  It seems to be a polar bear, a bear anyway, pinning a man's jacket to a tree stump, and is ostensibly the legend of how 'Dibley' got its name; it is also the biggest example of etymological twaddle I have ever encountered.

There are various versions of the story in circulation, but basically a bear, possibly a dancing bear kept in the cellar of the pub opposite my house, possibly called the first part of the real place name, managed to trap a man in a bearlike-embrace (another alleged possible source of the first part of the name).  In order to escape, the man wriggled out of his jacket - and so the name of the village was born.  Or not.  Not IMHO.

Fact or fiction, and the attractiveness to me or vandals of the statue aside, one does wonder how much was spent on this piece of carved stone and whether there might have been a more purposeful use to which at least some of it might have been put.  Afterall, the twaddle legend will always be with us...

For the first time in five years, someone from church has asked to talk to me about something they've been reading.  I ought to be pleased - but actually I'm troubled.  All I know is that her Bible-reading notes are troubling her because they are centred, I assume, on Revelation 2:18ff and 'that woman.'  It would appear that the note-writer takes a misogynist reading, and it is this she wants to check out, whilst clearly being fearful that her enquiry reflects the very 'spirit' she is being told to deplore and avoid.  A quick internet trawl shows up some scary pseudo-theology being peddled as the meaning fo this text, so much so that I've worded this post carefully to try to avoid cranks commenting!  But then they'd probably see me, being an ordained female, as an example of exactly what they fear.

I have found one sensible article online, from an AOG pastor, but wondered if any of you real theologians out there have any ideas of sensible books or studies I can point this woman to, to allay her fears and increase her understanding of the metaphors and principles that underlie this passage (and others).

Thank you!

This from Lucy attracted my attention with its powerful idea of the sense of a 'God who doesn't turn up' when expected - or act as we might desire - and what they might say about how we understand (or don't) God.  It made me ponder again the concept of 'real absence' and some of the ideas in the apophatic tradition.  Good stuff to be pondering, and so relevant for the many I know who are experiencing their own 'dark nights' at the moment.

I will continue to mull over the idea of God not turning up - not least in relation to those servcies I sometimes go to where the leader invites Jesus/God/Holy Spirit to come and meet us, rather than inviting us to become aware of the presence of God who is more real than we are...

Thanks Lucy, for making me think.  Hope the 'unsettlement' process is going OK for you.