VCE Texts and Traditions flashcards

32 cards. Read the term and the definition here. The deck at the top of this page is optional.

Exegesis

Critical interpretation that draws meaning from a text's original language, genre, and historical context, as distinguished from reading one's own assumptions into the passage.

Eisegesis

Interpretation that imports the reader's prior assumptions or desired conclusions into a text rather than deriving meaning from its language, genre, and setting.

Documentary hypothesis

Theory attributing the Pentateuch to four source strands, Yahwist, Elohist, Deuteronomist, and Priestly, distinguished by divine names, literary style, and theological emphasis.

Form criticism

Method identifying the oral units behind written texts and reconstructing the life-setting, or Sitz im Leben, in which those units circulated before being recorded.

Redaction criticism

Method comparing a received source with an editor's final version in order to identify the theological concerns and structuring choices of that final editor.

Canon formation

Historical process by which communities and councils settled which books carried authority, producing canon lists that differ between religious traditions.

Formal equivalence

Translation approach prioritising close correspondence to the source's wording and syntax, which preserves structure but can produce awkward or opaque target-language phrasing.

Textual criticism

Discipline reconstructing the earliest attainable reading by comparing manuscript variants and weighing witnesses for age, geographical spread, and internal coherence.

Tradition as paradosis

The Greek term means handing on, so tradition denotes both the content transmitted and the active process of transmitting it across generations.

Wesleyan quadrilateral

Method weighing Scripture, tradition, reason, and experience together, normally granting Scripture primacy while treating the other three as genuine contributors to theological judgment.

Sola scriptura

Claim that Scripture is the final authority in matters of faith and practice, not the only authority, since historic Protestant confessions still cite creeds and councils.

Development of doctrine

View that later formulations may unpack what was implicit earlier, tested by continuity with origins, reception by the community, and coherence with the whole faith.

Orthodoxy and orthopraxy

Right belief and right practice respectively; most traditions treat them as interdependent, so correct doctrine without corresponding conduct is judged incomplete.

Hermeneutical circle

Interpretive principle that a passage is read against the whole canon and the whole canon against the passage, making understanding iterative rather than a single linear act.

Inculturation

Adaptation of belief and practice to a receiving culture; debated because critics ask whether such adaptation preserves the tradition's core or dilutes it.

Propositional revelation

Model holding that revelation communicates truths about God that can be stated in propositions, contrasted with models stressing encounter or historical event.

Rite of passage

Ceremony marking a change of status, analysed as three stages: separation, liminality, and reaggregation, with the liminal phase often treated as ritually dangerous.

Sacrament versus rite

A sacrament is an outward sign believed to convey inward grace; a rite is any prescribed ceremonial action, so all sacraments are rites but not all rites are sacraments.

Ex opere operato

Principle that a sacrament's effect depends on the act performed in faith rather than on the personal worthiness of the minister administering it.

Ex opere operantis

Principle locating a rite's effect in the disposition or action of the one performing or receiving it, rather than in the act itself.

Liminality

Middle phase of a rite of passage in which participants are betwixt and between statuses, often subject to reversal, silence, or symbolic danger.

Liturgical calendar

Cyclical ordering of time through weekly, annual, and festal observances that re-enacts founding narratives and reinforces communal identity.

Pilgrimage

Journey to a sacred place combining spatial movement with expected inner transformation, where shrines mark contact between ordinary and sacred geography.

Ritual habitus

Internalised disposition produced by repeated ritual participation, shaping perception, identity, and conduct beyond the ritual occasion itself.

Sacred space and time

Distinction between the profane and the hierophanic, marking thresholds, orientations, and festival dates through which communities map meaning onto world and calendar.

Deontology

Normative theory judging acts by conformity to duty or rules rather than by consequences, so a prohibited act remains wrong even if outcomes seem favourable.

Consequentialism

Normative theory evaluating acts solely by their outcomes, so the right action is whichever produces the best overall balance of good over harm.

Virtue ethics

Approach centred on the agent's character and flourishing, asking what a practically wise and habituated person would do rather than applying rules or tallying outcomes.

Natural law

Ethical theory holding that moral norms are discernible from human nature and reason, and thus accessible in principle apart from special revelation.

Euthyphro dilemma

Problem for divine command theory: if acts are good because God commands them, goodness seems arbitrary; if commanded because already good, goodness is independent of God.

Situation ethics

Fletcher's approach weighing a single absolute, love, against circumstances through six factors: person, ends, means, motive, consequences, and situation.

Just war criteria

Conditions divided into jus ad bellum (legitimate authority, just cause, right intention, proportionality, last resort) and jus in bello (discrimination, proportionality).