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Marxsen on exegesis

Exegesis is the effort to understand what an author in the past wanted to say to those to whom he wrote as he did.

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The exegete of the New Testament writings, like exegetes in any other discipline, is obligated exclusively to her or his text. She or he repeats what those writers at that time wanted to say to their readers. She or he attempts to understand their assertions. To this end, she or he makes use of all the fullness of helpful means that the various auxiliary disciplines make available: philology, text criticism, literary criticism, and so on, right up to the ever more comprehensive material of religious studies. The exegete is clear that, even with all this, her or his understanding can always be only limited. Her or his way of asking questions also always determines the exegesis and limits its results. This way of asking questions is by no means chosen arbitrarily or left to the free choice of the exegetfexegete. It is determined, on the one side, by the history of exegesis, in the tradition in which the exegete consciously
or unconsciously stands. It is determined, on the other side, by the exegete's being a child of her or his time, who thinks in the categories of that time; and insofar forth the exegesis is always (again, consciously or unconsciously) determined philosophically. Only so is the exegete in a position really to translate, i.e., to bridge over the great temporal gulf between those assertions [sc. of the text] and her or his own present. Thus exegesis is always a "modern" affair. If it isn't, if, on the contrary, the way of asking questions is an old way, then the exegete is unable to reach her or his own present. It also becomes clear, then, that exegesis is never at an end, and never can be at an end, because the new time with its new way of asking questions demands a new exegesis. But this all applies, as was said, not only to the New Testament scholar, but also to every exegete in any of the human sciences or disciplines, and beyond them (104 f.).

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But we need to be aware of the limits to what such a way of using the Bible is able to accomplish. If we presuppose that our Protestant tradition is correct, and if we have to do only with persons who live within this tradtiontradition, then we would hardly have to engage in far-reaching considerations and could proceed as we proceeded before. We could "exegete" on the basis of tradition and control teaching and proclamation with the help of this "exegesis."

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