First there was exegesis, a way of interpreting from the text. Then, there was eisegesis, a way of reading into the text one’s own ideas, an action that most followers of Jesus are very proficient as they read the sacred text. I have coined a new word for the process of Bible interpretation which I call fractalgesis or fractagesis. Fractalgesis is the process of starting with the largest text, i.e., in the case of Scripture, the metanarrative, and moving to the smaller narratives of Scripture.

Typically in exegesis we have been taught to start with the smallest item, usually a word. We then endeavor to learn everything that we can about that word, its part of speech, its kind of action, how it is used in the language outside of our sacred text, etc. Next, we move in outward concentric circles of context as they are often called. The next concept to investigate would be the sentence in which the word occurs. Then, the paragraph, then, the chapter, then, the book, then, the other books by the same author, then, other similar types of literature by other authors, then, the genre, then, the larger section of the Bible, i.e., in this example, if a word was found in the New Testament the last circle would be the Old Testament.

What if we started at the other end of this cycle and mixed some metaphors. What if we started with the metanarrative and the glue that holds it together, i.e., the ownership, rulership, or Kingdom of God. Then, to see the fractalness of the Kingdom Story we put it through a prism. What shines through is different hues which we might call the larger acts of the story, but within theses acts the same repeated concept of the larger original hue can be observed. Then, we send these acts through a prism and what appears are all the scenes within the acts of the story, again with the same repeated concept of the larger original hue being repeated. Then, we continue the process of sending these scenes through the prism again and what appears are smaller narratives but with the original concept still in tact. We once again send these smaller narratives through the prism and beget the characters that support the main character within the story. We would finally end up with the words of the narrative that are being spoken to tell the story but they would be impregnated with the same content as the metanarrative. What we discover at all stages is that the content finds the same shapes differently produced. The more one magnifies the fractal of the story, the more one sees the patterns of the original the same only different.

Fractalgesis then is the art of reading the metanarrative refracted though a prism to discover the meaning of the narrative at hand with the original concept imbedded into the smallest concept.
How would that change our way of thinking about and studying our sacred text?

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This entry was posted on Sunday, July 27th, 2008 at 2:21 pm and is filed under Miscellaneous.