Doctoral Degrees (Old and New Testament)

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Reading Romans 13 : aspects of the ethics of interpretation in a controversial text
(Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 1991-12) Botha, Jan; Lategan, B. C.; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Theology. Dept. Old and New Testament.
ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This study is an attempt to develop and illustrate an ethos of responsible interpretation for Romans 13: 1-7 within the broader context of an 'ethics of historical reading' and an 'ethics of public responsibility' in New Testament scholarship. It is argued that an ethos of responsible interpretation of the New Testament 'compels' the interpreter to take reading seriously. This implies that the implications of the liguisticality, literariness and rhetoricity of the text, as well as the social phenomena of the world created by the text, 'must' be honoured and studied with all possible methodological sophistication and rigour. This has to be done since it forms the means through which the 'otherness' of the text is manifested. Such a study has to precede any inferences about the possible relation between the literature of the New Testament and text-extrinsic matters such as God, society, history or the self.