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One Rhonda Wauhkonen discusses Nicholas of Lyra\u2019s \u201cHebraic\u201d semiotics and hermeneutics in a 1992 article on Chaucer. She begins by contrasting Augustine\u2019s signum\/res <\/em> distinction to Lyra\u2019s Hebraic viewpoint: <\/p>\n \u201cIn the Hebrew system as evidenced in Scripture and as adapted by This Hebraic system comes to its fulfillment in Jesus: \u201cGiven This is the foundation of Lyra\u2019s \u201cdouble literal sense\u201d: \u201cCentred in Christ, this pattern enabled a reading of the Hebrew Scriptures through and in reference to Jesus as the Son of God. Making possible a \u2018theory of language as a system of signs,\u2019 such a Hebraic form of reference had obvious implications for a \u2018Christian\u2019 hermeneutic: it extended the \u2018natural\u2019 meaning of the text to include typology (or referential meaning) and brought \u2018under one head, that of \u201csigns,\u201d the two enquiries into the literal meaning and the figurative The ramifications of this model went beyond biblical interpretation, affecting theories of reading in general: \u201cIn effect, it re-defined mediaeval reading theory from a two-book concept of analogy (such as was held by Dante) wherein the things of the world (objects, texts, history, or humanity\u2014individual or collective) were understood to parallel the things of the spirit to a one-book concept of reference wherein all things of the world were seen as but various expressions of a single underlying Truth.\u201d <\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" One Rhonda Wauhkonen discusses Nicholas of Lyra\u2019s \u201cHebraic\u201d semiotics and hermeneutics in a 1992 article on Chaucer. She begins by contrasting Augustine\u2019s signum\/res distinction to Lyra\u2019s Hebraic viewpoint: \u201cIn the Hebrew system as evidenced in Scripture and as adapted by Nicholas, such stratification of signification did not exist, for the language did not permit it. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3021,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2886","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hermeneutics"],"yoast_head":"\n
Nicholas, such stratification of signification did not exist, for the language did not permit it. Most fundamentally, Augustine\u2019s distinction between words signifying and things signifying became unnecessary and unsupportable since within a \u2018biblical\u2019 linguistic framework, \u2018word\u2019 and \u2018thing\u2019were not customarily distinguished. Most often, they received expression through the same Hebrew term, dabar <\/em> , a broadly encompassing word covering
almost all possible aspects of speech and communication. As simply
alternative formulations of dabar <\/em> , a \u2018word\u2019 and a \u2018thing\u2019 could therefore be understood as equally and similarly significant within a Hebrew context: both could represent \u2018things,\u2019 objective or ideational, sequentially or simultaneously on any number of levels. Reflecting not a primitive or underdeveloped linguistic mechanism, but simply a logic and system of reference substantially different from that of Latin and of the West under Aristotle, the Hebraic sign system thus tended to streamline the process of reference and to broaden its scope: whereas in Augustine\u2019s Latin formulation, signification proceeded via signa naturalia <\/em> from verbum <\/em> to res <\/em> (physical reality) or (note the distinction between the two modes of signification) via signa data <\/em> from res <\/em> (object) to res <\/em> (idea), in Hebrew, all dabarim <\/em> , all words\/things (including narratives, history, and human lives) were simply generic signs, \u2018otot <\/em> (plural of \u2018ot <\/em> , \u2018sign\u2019) or \u2018signs\u2019 of the same nature.\u201d <\/p>\n
In Lyra\u2019s Hebraic framework, signs are personally involving, dynamic and not static pointers to things: Signs \u201calso engaged the recipient of the signs with the will of the giver, demanding a response to complete the process of signification. Not only distinguishing one thing from another, \u2018otot <\/em> have an intended ethical and effective end: they had involved the reader with the sign and with its author, usually working to affirm or induce belief in something specific, such as God or His covenants (as through the rainbow,
circumcision, Torah, etc.). The bronze serpent in the wilderness, for
example, became an \u2018ot <\/em> , an efficacious sign, not merely by being fashioned or by being raised up. It became both a sign and effective only when it was responded to, when the individual responded in a volitional and intentional manner to the will of the Author of the sign . . . . Only the volitional act of looking, of the
individual\u2019s reception of and response to the sign, made the bronze serpent an effective vehicle by which the will of the Author could bring about a change in the condition of the \u2018reader.\u2019\u201d <\/p>\n
a broader and typological significance in John (as in the depiction of Him as the Passover Lamb, 1:29), Jesus was also presented as the semeion (or the \u2018ot <\/em> ) of the New Covenant. As such, He assumed a peculiarly \u2018literary\u2019 role: being both the Sign and the Signified, the Revealer and the Revealed, He paralleled and surpassed in Himself the sign theory of the Hebrew Scriptures. At the same time, however, He transformed it from an interpretive reading of God\u2019s works and words to an immediately interactive reading: rather than merely presenting those signs or interpretations of them which
reveal who God is and what He wills (as the Prophets had done), Jesus interpreted the word by and through Himself, reading both Scripture (e.g. Luke 4:21) and his own actions (e.g. John 5:19) in reference to Himself and His Father. In doing so, He brought together in Himself the \u2018ot <\/em> (the sign), what it signifies, and the right reading of it. In effect, He became the Author, the Narrator, and the Participant in the \u2018Text\u2019 of the world and of Scripture.\u201d Hermeneutically as in every other way, \u201call things hold together\u201d in Christ \u2013 sign, thing, author, text, reader. <\/p>\n
or typological sense of literature\u2019 (Markus 68)\u2014the two aspects of meaning that Nicholas brings together in his sensus literalis <\/em> . <\/p>\n