What Does Exegesis Mean?
Exegesis is a transliteration of the Greek word exhgeisqai, meaning ‘to draw out’. It is simply a hermeneutical process of pulling out the meaning of a text. Exegesis does this by considering all the cultural, social, and religious forces that may be influencing the true meaning of the words. When I was in Bible College, a linguist came to my evangelism class and discussed the challenges of sharing the gospel in other languages. He explained that the challenge was not one of vocabulary, but one of idioms and colloquialisms; it was the challenge of understanding cultures and traditions. For example, when he was in a small tribal village in South America a particular tribesman asked him if he had a snake in his throat. He couldn't figure out what he was being asked, it made no sense to him. After some time spent gesturing back and forth, and using what few words he knew, he realized that the tribesman was merely asking if he had a cold. There was no word for the common cold in their language; therefore, they had to describe the cold. He learned later that because of the wheezing and congestion noises he was making, to them, it sounded like a snake hissing from inside the throat. This was their way of describing a cold. The reason he wasn't able to understand what was being asked, he said, was that he was only translating the words and not the idea behind them, rather, he wasn’t translating the words from their point of view. Why, because he didn't know there culture well enough to make that connection. This is where exegesis and hermeneutics come in. It is the art and science of accurately interpreting a message from the speaker’s point of view by taking into consideration all the outside influences that may skew the meaning. [mp]
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Michael D'Urbano
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