Interpretation

Abstract

To address the issue of how revelation is to be interpreted, we need a clear understanding not only of revelation, but also of interpretation. And here we encounter problems similar to those we faced with revelation, for interpretation is understood in different ways by different people, including philosophers and theologians. This is obvious from the many objects of interpretation to which we refer in ordinary language. We talk about interpreting events, elections, people, actions, motives, views, arguments, symbols, signs, the world, authorities, and so on. And surely, in many cases, the differences among these objects suggest that what we are doing, when we are interpreting them, are quite different things. To interpret a motive seems to be quite a different thing from interpreting an authority, and likewise with a view or symbol. Indeed, if we go back to the different views of revelation we saw earlier, it appears that they also involve different interpretations. Recall that revelation was taken to be at least four different kinds of things: acts of revealing, facts revealed, acts of receiving what is revealed, and the means used to reveal. The interpretation of a fact would appear to be something different than the interpretation of an act of revealing, an act of receiving a revelation, or the means used in revealing. Fortunately, in the last chapter we settled on the means of revelation as the proper source of our inquiry, and we identified this with texts regarded as revealed by a community of religious believers. This makes our task much easier.