Numéro thématique
- - Avertissement au lecteur
- VOUGA François, ROHMER Céline - Incipit
- CUVILLIER Élian - « Liberté de l’Évangile, vérité de l’exégète » Variations herméneutiques autour d’un titre improbable
- GERBER Daniel - « Vérité » de l’Évangile paulinien et « liberté » de l’exégète Quelques pointillés d’un parcours de néotestamentaire
- ASSAËL Jacqueline - Les « poètes de la Parole » et la « Loi de la liberté »
- FIEVET Didier - La bienheureuse tentation de l’exégète
- SINGER Christophe - Peut-on descendre du vélo pour se regarder pédaler ?
- COMBET-GALLAND Corina - Aujourd’hui, si vous entendez sa voix, n’endurcissez pas vos cœurs !
- ANTIER Guilhen - Trait d’esprit et Saint Esprit Liberté de l’Évangile et mensonge de l’exégète
- VOUGA François - Matthieu interprète d’Élian Cuvillier
- PASTORELLI David - Liberté de l’Évangile et lecteur averti Réflexions à partir de Jean 4,17
- BÜHLER Pierre - L’exégète et le systématicien face à la liberté de l’Évangile – deux vérités différentes ?
- NOCQUET Dany - Liberté interprétative et vérité insaisissable : les apprentissages de la Bible hébraïque face à la diversité yahwiste
- GIGNAC Alain - Un désir qui hameçonne – ou qui impulse ? (Jacques 1,12-25 ; 2,12 et 2 Pierre 2,1-3.10-22) Liberté et vérité, lorsque la Bible rejoint la psychanalyse
- ROHMER Céline - Du deutéro-Élian à l’Élian historique Relecture d’une course belle
- VOUGA François, ROHMER Céline - Explicit
“Liberty of the Gospel, truth of the exegete.” Hermeneutical variations around an improbable title
Invited to open the symposium given for his 60th birthday with a public conference, Élian Cuvillier picks out, from his own experience, the terms of liberty of the Gospel and of truth of the exegete. He underlines the liberating force in reading the texts at face value, the truth that none masters, and which arrives at the beginning of the meeting, and the force of a biblical word which recalls the precedence of our founding, the blessing of our finitude, the creative power of alterity and our declaration of independence with regard to determinism.
“Truth” of the Gospel of Paul and “liberty” of the exegete. Some dotted lines on the route of a New Testament writer
Preparing a commentary on the First Letter to the Corinthians, Daniel Gerber takes up the notions of truth and of liberty in a frank dialogue with the man of Tarsus. His way of redefining himself in relation to the “truth” of the Gospel of Paul leads him to first define his own exegetic work of denostrification as a refreshing critical distanciation from the apostle’s letters. This intellectual task presupposes the “liberty” of the exegete – a liberty which, particularly in Reformed tradition, makes the exegete do honest and rigorous work. Thus the quest for the “truth” of Paul’s Gospel necessarily involves using various forms of critical analysis (historical-critical method, study of the performance, taking into account archeological results). Only an exacting critical interpretation can ensure the discovery in a new light of the unique figure of the Apostle and measure the theological and anthropological pertinence for our contemporaries.
The “poets of the Word” and the “Law of liberty”
The philologist Jacqueline Assaël begins by checking if liberty is a value in the biblical tradition on which Christian thinking is founded, or not, and by trying to determine in what sense and aspect this notion may be a hermeneutical issue in its relationship to the concept of truth. By examining various mentions of the idea of liberty in the New Testament, she tries to distinguish the spiritual dimension, especially in certain passages of the Letter of James. The liberty of the Gospel thus appears limited in the direction of God’s project.
The blissful temptation of the exegete
Didier Fiévet establishes a parallel between, on one hand, a truth crisis introduced in the hard sciences by the work of Gödel and the results of quantum physics, and on the other hand a certain crisis of Biblical truth, unease felt by many faithful unsettled by the results of contemporary exegesis. He argues that this discomfort before a truth that pretends truth rather than defining it is the founding stone of a liberating subjectivity: the Gospel is not the bringer of total truth, but on the contrary is stamped with incompletion. A different comprehension of kenosis ?
Can you get off your bike to watch yourself pedal?
According to logic often used in educational circles, a good method is to question actions by using a mirror. What about when the action consists in putting into words a Christian theology whose questioning revolves around not the problems in existence but the very mystery of existence? Christophe Singer explores this paradox, which exceeds the methodology, on the issue of practical theology and the exegesis.
If you hear His voice today, do not harden your hearts !
From the Letter to the Hebrews, Corina Combet-Galland retains a part where the call to listen to the voice of God resounds for tired humanity (3,1-4,13). For its audience, the Letter narrates the proximity of Jesus to man, His solidarity through incarnation. He, the Mediator-Christ, the Passover through whom man passes to God. Becoming Christ’s Metic, man is house of God – not in a fixed place, but in the very itinerancy of his march in the desert. In search of hope. This study shows how the Letter urges man to seize today’s opportunity for mutual encouragement, and hold on, till the end, in Christ’s companionship: man who listens to his Creator’s voice and believes thus enters into God’s infinite joy, contemplates His work, enjoys His primordial Sabbath and, in complete liberty, hears the ultimate truth. Thus the word of God takes the liberty of coming to make the truth in us.
Witticism and Holy Spirit. Liberty of the Gospel and lie of the exegete
In this article, Guilhen Antier addresses the question of the truth of the exegete from the angle of its relationship to the lie, according to fictional and psychoanalytical references. Far from being the opposite of the truth, the lie is seen at an unconscious level as a possible declaration of the truth. The article then hypothesises on an articulation between the anthropological dimension of the witticism and the theological dimension of the Holy Spirit, in Matthew 10,16-20 testimony to the truth. The liberty of the Gospel works as a liberation of the truth from its confusion with knowledge.
Matthew interpreter of Élian Cuvillier
In a literary fiction, François Vouga proposes to Élian Cuvillier, interpreter of Matthew, a dialogue from Matthew on the places of common reading, past and present, of the first Gospel. He raises the question once again of Paul’s filiality of Matthew’s thinking. He then invites a reflexion on what the vocation of an interpreter turned disciple of the kingdom means. And concludes with a proposition on the interest shown by the Sermon on the Mount for psychoanalysis, for the analysis and the therapy of the human soul.
Liberty of the Gospel and informed reader. Reflections on John 4:17
The transmission of a text and the versions that appear and disappear are not independent of theological debates. David Pastorelli remarks that the last words of Jn 4:17 form a lesson often unnoticed : “(Because) you have no husband” is the “western” lesson, read and commented on by the Valentinian Heracleon. First great commentator, gnostic, of the Gospel of John, he sees in the husband the woman lacks the union of the gnostic with his celestial spouse. This lesson goes back to the first half of the IInd century and is both the oldest lesson and the best source. Victim of an unusual reading, but literal, of which Heracleon is the only witness, it was suppressed by the Alexandrian recension in about 180, doubtless wrongly, to cut short gnostic exegesis.
The exegete and the systematician versus the liberty of the Gospel – two different truths ?
In seven theses, Pierre Bühler reflects the necessary collaboration between exegete, systematician and practician to bring about the liberty of the Gospel meaning here the liberty the Gospel generates. He points out the stakes of this interdisciplinarity and emphasises the deadlocks leading to instrumentalisation and dessication of the Biblical text. In the company of Kierkegaard, Bultmann, Ricœur and Ebeling, the systematician from Neuchâtel makes the case for a mutual interpellation of the disciplines in the service of the proclamation of the Gospel.
Interpretative liberty and elusive truth : the teachings of the Hebrew Bible versus Yahwist diversity
As hommage to the enormous exegetic work of Élian Cuvillier, Dany Nocquet explores the echoes that the expressions “liberty of the Gospel” and “truth of the exegesis” may have in the Hebrew Bible. Old Testament research during the last decades has revealed in a new way rewriting and re-elaboration on the questions of the relationship of Israel to God, the relation to nations and to the land. In these fields, the Hebrew Bible describes the moves which lead to a recognition of the universal accessibility to Yhwh, and of the plural ways of being in the world of God. Thus, the Old Testament becomes a reference of an audacious hermeneutical liberty before a provisional truth, ceaselessly elusive, and that had to be made intelligible with regard to the multiple circumstances and the diversities of faith in Ancient Israel.
A desire that hooks – or that boosts ? (James 1:12-25 ; 2:12 and 2 Peter 2:1-3:10-22) Liberty and truth, when the Bible meets psychoanalysis
Within the collection of Catholic letters, James 1:12-25, 2:12 and 2 Peter 2:1-3,10-22 propose two contrasting discourses of freedom and truth, very different in style, statements and enunciation. The two texts have in common a rare expression (NT hapax, Jc 1:14; 2 P 2:14.18): “hooked/hook by desire”, which can constitute an anchor for psychoanalytic questioning. At first glance, James would express a true relationship to a true word, which leads to freedom, while 2 Peter would express a distorted relationship to self and to others, conveyed by a pseudo speech, which leads to slavery. However, at second glance, neither of the two discourses is capable of correctly dealing with desire, much less of exhausting its complexity.
From deutero-Élian to historical Élian. Review of a beautiful course
To reply to the invitation from the symposium to link the words liberty and truth, Céline Rohmer looks at the way the Letter to the Galatians reflects their dependence. To defend the liberty that the truth of the Gospel gives to the Galatians, Paul recalls their trajectory, reminding them of its beauty (Gal 5,7). In three places in the letter (Gal 4:12-20 ; 5:1-13 ; 6:1-10), the Apostle shows a new comprehension of beauty/καλὸν (kalòn), as different to good/ἀγαθον (ágathon) and as an implementation of the liberty offered since and through the truth of the Gospel. This article reveals an aesthetic dimension of the Letter to the Galatians, likely to lend meaning to any unique trajectory that the truth of the Gospel initiates.