Hermeneutics question

George Somsel

This is basically for those who have

Savran, George W. Encountering the Divine : Theophany in Biblical Narrative. London; New York: T & T Clark International, 2005.

Generally I totally oppose any interpretive activity which I consider to be rather subjective or psychological in nature, but on the bottom of p 41 through the top of p 46 (logosres:encountrdvne;ref=Page.p_41;off=1897) Savran gives an interpretation of 1 Sam 3 which I nevertheless find rather interesting.  What are your thoughts?

Rosie Perera

Generally I totally oppose any interpretive activity which I consider to be rather subjective or psychological in nature, but on the bottom of p 41 through the top of p 46 (logosres:encountrdvne;ref=Page.p_41;off=1897) Savran gives an interpretation of 1 Sam 3 which I nevertheless find rather interesting.  What are your thoughts?

I find it intriguing, but then I'm not so totally opposed to bringing subjective intuition or psychological knowledge to bear on biblical interpretation. What I find even more intriguing is that this passage is so compelling that even someone totally opposed to that sort of activity would be intrigued by it. [:)]

At first I was a bit skeptical of this bit: "prophecy was not only rare in frequency,⁵¹ but it was also not widespread. The few oracles that occurred didn’t circulate beyond the immediate recipient of the oracle, with the result that people remained untouched by the prophecy.⁵²"  I don't know Hebrew well at all, but I didn't know why the author jumped to "widespread" meaning wide circulation of local prophecies, as opposed to prophecies arising in several places over a widespread area. Footnote 52 explained that to my satisfaction, though.