In this primer on hermeneutics, Petr Pokorny takes up basic issues in understanding from language in general to the interpretation of the Bible.
While Hermeneutics as a Theory of Understanding deals with most of the problems of hermeneutics and their role in society and impact in history, the book's main aim is not to introduce new methodologies or to investigate the character of human understanding by new probes into literary or historical documents. Instead, Pokorny's principal intention is to define the philosophical and theological premises of individual projects of understanding --...

The monograph is devoted to a crucial point of Christian theology: its development from the short formulae of the 'gospel' (euangelion) - as the first reflected expressions of Christian faith - to the theology of literary Gospels as texts that evoked the idea of Christian canon as a counterpart of the "Law and Prophets."

In the formulae of the oral gospel the apocalyptic expectations are adapted into a "doubled" or "split" eschatology: The Messiah has appeared, but the messianic reign is still the object of expectation. The experience with Jesus' post Easter impact has been named...