Children as hermeneutes : readings of the seven parables in Matthew thirteen

[摘要] ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This qualitative empirical study is located in one of the aims of Bible Skills whichfocuses on 'the Bible in today's world' and specifically on the foregrounding of the ordinary reader in recent research. The study aimed to answer two mutuallydependent research questions about children as ordinary readers of the Bible. The first question was concerned with the sense children of ten make of theseven parabolic units in Matthew thirteen and the second with the children's hermeneutical processes and strategies. A small sample of thirteen Grade 5learners was divided into three leaderless groups to work out over threediscussion episodes what the parables meant to teach. A discussions wereaudio-taped, transcribed and subject to a content analysis for features of the children's interpretations. The researcher's analysis of the readings was broughtinto dialogue with three previous critical assessments of the parables by trained readers. The discussion data were also used to make inferences regardingeight dimensions of the hermeneutical task. Two tentative conclusions relativeto the two research questions were drawn from these observations. The children could readily conceptualize reading parables as a search for meaningand were we able to discover together an agreed and intelliqible meaning of the allotted parables. The children also had available to them and couldintuitively use an identifiable pattern of hermeneutical strategies. Severallimitations of the study are considered, together with some implications for the study of the. Bible in religious education and some comments on furtherresearch.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University