DAVUILEVU THEOLOGICAL COLLEGE

TERM PAPER

Structuralism Criticism

Akuila Samu and Jone Saraqia

BS 115

Lecture: Rev. Waqalevu Bola.

Date of Submission: 19/12/2022

1.0 Introduction

Structural exegesis is a major recent development in biblical studies and is related to

simultaneous currents in other fields of academic study. Traditional exegetical methods

follow a historical paradigm whereas structuralism follows a linguistic paradigm. Thus, these

two approaches involve significantly different attitudes toward the biblical text. Through

clear analytic explanations illustrated by application to specific texts, Daniel Patte shows how

structuralism and traditional scholarship must go hand in hand so that together they can carry

the exegetical task to its end and open the possibility for fresh insights based on clear

understandings (2015, 10). However, in this essay, my focus will be solely on the idea of

structuralist criticism.

The essay will be delving into the history of the above criticism to answer the

question of whether “Is the structuralist theory an essential tool in interpreting texts?” By

doing so, I have divided this essay into three major sections. The first section will scrutinize

the term exegesis. Under exegesis, there are three sub-sections. The first sub-section covers

the etymology and the history of the term exegesis. The second sub-section will delve into the

concept of biblical exegesis while concluding it with an illustration of exegesis.

Secondly, the focus of this paper will move from exegesis to structuralist criticism.

The section is divided into four sub-sections. The first sub-section will solely deal with the

etymology and the history of the word structuralist. Secondly, I will dig deeper into the

model of the structuralist to clarify the surface structure and the deep structure. Thirdly, I will

bring up what structuralist emphasizes and which is ahistorical and atemporal and conclude it

with an illustration.

Finally, I will wrap up this essay with my conclusion by answering the question that

I posed above, “Is the structuralist theory an essential tool in interpreting texts?”

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2.0 Exegesis

The majority of the people we heard or met proclaim that there is no need to do

research in interpreting the living Word of God that is recorded in the Bible. Thus, we only

have to simply read it and do what it says because it is the word of God and one cannot

diminish or flare it up.

However, one thing that we have to keep in mind is that English is not the mother

tongue of the Protestant Bible. It is believed that the sixty-six books in the Protestant Bible

were written in several languages before it was translated into the English language and other

languages. According to Gordon Fee and Douglas Stuart, most of the books in the Old

Testament were written in Hebrew while half of the book of Daniel and two passages in the

book of Ezra were written in Aramaic a sister language to Hebrew (2014, 33). In addition, all

of these sixty-six books are written in different genres by different authors with different

intentions and these were written to different recipients on different occasions.

Therefore, there are ways in which biblical scholars have identified and provided for

the usage of reading and interpreting the living Word of God. In this section, I will delve into

three points and they are, the etymology and the history of exegesis, the biblical exegesis, and

an illustration to simplify the deep meaning of exegesis.

2.1 Etymology and History of Exegeses

Interpreting the Bible or any other text is an art whereby measures and methods have

to be learned and taken into account for simple and clear interpretations. Conceivably, if it is

not taken seriously, interpretation can cover up the plain meaning of the text and opaque the

author’s intention. Therefore, exegesis is a thoughtful matter where questions need to be first

clarified before digging deeper into it.

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 The question that needs to be enquired is, what is exegesis? Exegesis comprises the

most important task of the study of the New Testament (Conzelmann and Lindemann 1988,

1; cited in Porter 1997, 4). The term is also known as critical interpretation and the science of

interpretive principles (Board for the Encyclopedia Britannica. 2021). It was derived from the

Greek word ὲξηγέομαι - exegeomai which means “to lead out of.” When it applies to an oral

or a written statement it denotes the “reading out” of the meaning of the statement (Hayes and

Holladay 1987, 5). More generally, exegesis is also meant to explain, interpret, tell, report, or

describe and it classically referred to the articulation or discovery of a text’s meaning based

on the understanding of the original author’s intentions and goals.

2.2 Biblical Exegesis

John Wesley once said, “I have thought I am a creature of a day, passing through life

as an arrow through the air. I am a spirit come from God, and returning to God, just hovering

over the great gulf, till a few moments hence, I am no more seen; I drop into an unchangeable

eternity! I want to know one thing—the way to heaven, how to land safely on that happy

shore. God himself has condescended to teach the way; for this very end, He came from

heaven. He has written it down in a book. O give me that Book at any price, give me the

Book of God” (from the preface of Sermons on Several Occasions by John Wesley, originally

published in 1771; cited in Piper 1999, 2).

The book is very costly. Martyrs wrote it and others have suffered intensely for their

faithfulness to it. It has been preserved and passed down through scrupulous efforts. The

aforementioned has been translated into the vernacular of thousands of people, sometimes at

the cost of life, not to mention time, energy, and money.

This Book is a “treasure chest of holy joy.” It is from this Book that we learn what the

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apostles taught concerning the ultimate sacrifice of the Son of God. It is from this Book that

we learn about the supremacy of God in all things. It is from this Book that we learn about

what our sovereign and good Father requires of us, his dependent children.

Therefore, biblical exegesis has an important task in explaining, interpreting, telling,

reporting, describing, and articulating or discovering the meanings of the texts based on the

understanding of the original author’s intentions and goals. Conversely, exegesis is solely

unwrapping and unpacking the text to draw out the true meaning.

2.3 Illustration

Things that we use in our everyday lives speaks volume and is used to plainly

illustrate the deep meaning of exegesis. Exegesis is seen as the process through which the

reader reads, examines, and listens to the words of the text as a medium communicating the

author’s message. The text serves as a conduit or vehicle for the author’s thought (1987, 110).

The conduit is the tube that protects the electric wiring and the electric wires run inside the

conduit, as it were. The wires inside the conduits are covered by a rubber or plastic coating

called insulation.

Therefore, for one to view the electric wire, he has to first rip open the conduit to

unpack the insulations from the conduit. Secondly, once the insulations are unpacked, he then

has to strip the insulation to uncover the electric wires. Within that wire flows invisible live

electricity. Feasibly, drawing out the author’s original intent from the text is not a stress-free

task to be taken frivolously. It is a “treasure chest of holy joy.”We have to be seriously ripped

open and stripped of the treasure chest by reading it and listening to it to understand and draw

out the holy joys that are stored in it. Similar to the live electricity that flows through the

electric wire the author’s original intent flows freely in the text or the treasure chest of holy

joy.

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 Various methods are undertaken to exegete a text namely, textual criticism, historical

criticism, grammatical criticism, literary criticism, form criticism, tradition criticism, and

redaction criticism. These methods are primarily historical in orientation However, within the

last few decades, a method for studying texts in a non-historical and atemporal fashion has

developed. This approach is “structuralist criticism” (1987, 110).

3.0 Structuralist Criticism

There are countless forms of narrative and methods of how they are exegeted,

critically analyzed, and interpreted. Therefore, in this regard, I will be focusing on

structuralist criticism. In structuralism, researchers assume that all social activity is governed

by abstract conventions, convictions, and rules (1987, 111). These constitute the foundational

structures of all cultural systems and manifest themselves in all forms of human social

activity.

In this section, I will be delving into two points they are; the etymology and history of

structural criticism,

3.1 Etymology and History of Structuralist Criticism

Every individual word has its meaning and how their meanings have changed

throughout history. Correlating to the concept above, structuralism has stirred as much

enthusiasm as opprobrium. From the Latin struere, derived from structura, the term

"structure" initially had an architectural meaning. The structure is designated as "how a

building is constructed” ((Trévoux Dictionary 1771; cited in Dosse 1997, xxii). In the

seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the meaning was modified and broadened by analogy to

include living creatures. It was further developed by a French scientist and man of letters

Bernard Le Bovier sieur de Fontenelle when he saw a human body as a construction

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(Britannica 2022). Two other French grammarians and scientists Claude Favre seigneur de

Vaugelas and Denise Bernot directed the course of development by viewing the language as a

construction (1997, xxii.) The term came to describe how the parts of a concrete being are

structured into a whole, and it could apply to a variety of structures and in a broad spectrum

of studies such as psychological, geological, sociological, literature and language. However,

our focus will be on the literature and language.

3.2 Surface Structure and Deep Structure

Scientists assume that all social activities are governed by abstracts. And every human

in every society has an innate capacity both for structuring existence and for creating patterns

of meaning. Some structures and structural patterns are universal and thus are shared across

diverse cultural and linguistic boundaries. All social activities, including art, and literature

embody and reflect numerous structures. The structural features that are easily perceived are

referred to as “surface structures.” Whilst those that are complex and need aid are referred to

as “deep structures” (1987, 111). This complies with very complex linguistic structures.

Structuralists assume that literature reflects both surface structures and deep

structures. The “deep structures” are reflective of structural patterns that transcend time and

space but can be abstracted from samplings of literature (1987, 111). In structuralist

interpretation, a text is viewed more as a mirror than as a window. Since the text reflects the

universally shared structures and concerns. Therefore, a text stands on its own regardless of

the text’s origins or past and is to be interpreted without concern for the author’s assumed

original intention. Every individual text is more generic rather than genetic because

historical/genetic issues can blur the perception of generic features.

Structuralists are as interested in how texts communicate and have the meaning as in

what they communicate and mean. As illustrated on page four, structuralist reads examine

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and listens to the words of the text to create space for the reader to rip the text open and

striping the layers of the text to find the relationship and the coordination that is in the text. In

this process, they emphasize such questions as the following: How does a particular text

produced under particular cultural constraints embody and give expression to universal

concerns? How does a reader decode the text or how does the text communicate its deep

structure to resonate with the deep structures of the reader? (1987, 112). The focus is on the

text and the reader rather than on such matters as writing and the author’s intention.

Therefore, it is important to understand more fully some of the underlying exegetical

assumptions of structuralism, and two major emphases are especially important.

3.3 A text is to be considered ahistorical and atemporal

The ahistorical and atemporal are the two major emphases that were aforementioned.

Ahistorical simply means, “not concerned with or related to history, historical development,

or tradition, while on the other hand, atemporal does not dependent on or unaffected by time

(Merriam 1831). In structuralist criticism the reader reads a text without reference to the

elements of history, space and time; in fact, every effort is made to exclude the dimension of

the aforementioned unless it is a particular concern of the text. This method is in contrast

with other methods of exegesis. Whilst, from the structuralist point of view, every individual

text exists in its own right and is to be interpreted on its terms, in addition, it does not connect

to any historical background or time (1987, 112). Those who are accustomed to connecting to

history and time while exegeting a text may find this method to be nerve-wracking.

Furthermore, the main task of structuralist criticism is to bracket out the original

historical setting and reconstrue how we understand a text to convey meaning viz.

structuralist criticism favors synchronic over diachronic analysis (1987, 113). The synchronic

analysis disregards the existence and the development through time and it considers a literary

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work to possess its meaning. Hence, it inclines to the concept of ahistorical and atemporal.

Thus, diachronic analysis stresses more on the existence and development through time.

3.4 Illustration

In this section, I will exegete the annunciation of the birth of Jesus Christ to illustrate

the structuralist criticism method. The text that I will be working on is Luke 1:26-38. I will

first identify the surface structure. In the surface structure, I will refer to those contours of the

text that I can visibly trace, the outline of an argument, or the flow of a story. Secondly, I will

move on to the next level in identifying the deep structure of the text where I will choose a

few words from the text and scrutinize their stems and to which it points.

3.4.1 Surface Structure

The outline of the text Luke 1:26-38 is comprised of five constitutive elements

(Foudy. s.a. 1):

1. vs. 26-28: The angel’s entrance

2.1 v. 29: Mary’s perplexity

2.2 vs. 30-33: The angel’s message (30: Mary told not to be afraid; 31: Mary told

she would conceive and bear a son; told he would be named Jesus; 32-33:

Mary told about her son’s greatness, sonship, and kingdom)

3. v. 34: Mary’s question/objection

4. vs. 35-36: The angel’s reply – Mary’s virginal conception

5.1 v. 37: The sign – Elizabeth’s pregnancy in her old age

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 5.2 v. 38: Mary’s assent to God’s will and the angel’s message

In the first part of the story of the announcement to Mary, in verses 26-28 Gabriel was sent

by God to Mary. His arrival in verse 29, put Mary in a state of perplexity. The angel later

affirmed her, in verses 30 to 33 before conveying the message that she would conceive and

bear a son, she was later instructed to name him Jesus, and she was told about her son’s

greatness, sonship, and kingdom. Moving on in verse 34, Mary has dazed by how everything

happened so fast, and she then objected. However, the angel swiftly unwraps the package

from before her presenting that she will have a virginal conception. In verse 37, she was

directed to perceive Elizabeth’s pregnancy in her old age to clear her doubts. In verse 38, she

is inclined to God’s will and the angel’s message.

3.4.2 Deep Structure

Under this section, I will identify the deep structure of the text where I will choose a

few words from the text, scrutinize their stems, and identify their relationships.

The Words of the Text Explanation

(v. 26) Luke uses this phrase here and in 1:36
The sixth month Ἐν δὲ τῷ μηνὶ τῷ
1 to connect Mary’s and Elizabeth’s miraculous
ἕκτῳ
pregnancies.

(v. 27)— Legally speaking, Mary was Joseph’s

wife although they did not live together. This is
A virgin betrothed πρὸς παρθένον a different concept from what we know to be
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ἐμνηστευμένην “engagement.” The only way to end a betrothal
in Jewish culture at that time was to ask for a
divorce.

(v. 28)— “Rejoice!” This word describes the

joy of the Annunciation scene and recalls the
OT passages that speak of Daughter Zion. The
prophets refer to Mother Jerusalem whose
3 Hail Xαῖρε
children will rejoice in the Messiah when God
dwells in their midst. Scriptures including Joel
2:23-24, Zeph 3:14, and Zech 9:9 describe the
theme of joy upon the coming of the Messiah

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 (v.28) – In the Bible, angels typically address
people by a personal name. In this instance,
however, Mary is addressed by a title. The
expression “full of grace” is St. Jerome’s
translation in the Latin Vulgate. Luke describes
4 Full of grace kεχαριτωμένη Stephen (Acts 6:8) as “full of grace” (δὲ
πλήρης χάριτος), but the expression he uses for
Mary (kεχαριτωμένη) indicates that she has
already been “graced” before this point. This
shows that she has already been and is now
filled with divine life.

this term was an antiquated term that referred

5 The house of Jacob τὸν οἶκον Ἰακὼβ to Israel (Gen 46: 27; Exodus 19:3; Isa 8:17). It
is announced that Jesus will “rule as king.”

4.0 Conclusion

To conclude, the structuralist theory is a recent development in biblical studies. The

theory has a great need to be taught and practiced, especially by the lay members of the

church. The structuralist theory is an essential tool in interpreting texts.

It has been encountered in the past and as of today when members of the household of

Christianity pose their differences and go through heated arguments in the light of their

difference in biblical interpretation. Furthermore, members have been moved and swayed by

the winds of change that swiftly move within and beyond the parameters of the church.

I believe, that if structuralist criticism is taught and ripples down to the grassroots

members of the church, hence, will allow the light from the word to shine and unite the

differences that fabricate the society within and beyond the church by allowing the word from

the Holy Bible speaks out its self.

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