Vignettes of Community Hermeneutics - Tradition; In the series: GEMEINDETHEOLOGIE: Who & How?

Like the previous vignette, tradition lacks the third characteristic of a hermeneutical community: a close knit believing community. In addition one has to ask questions about interaction. While Westphal, based on Gadamerian theories on conversation, would argue that static texts can be a conversational partner (and admitting that similar terminology has been used metaphorically in the introduction of this series of posts), it is hard to imagine a conversation with a static document. Conversation has to be dialectic. Therefore, tradition, while a good hermeneutical safeguard, does not in itself constitute a hermeneutical community.