|
Hermeneutics Applied to a STOP Sign
1. A post modernist deconstructs the sign by knocking it over with his car,
and thus ends the tyranny of the north-south traffic over the east-west
traffic.
2. The Marxist refuses to stop because she sees the stop sign as an
instrument of class conflict, since the bourgeois use the north-south route
and obstruct the proletariat moving east-west.
3. A serious and educated Catholic rolls through the intersection because he
believes he cannot understand the stop sign apart from its interpretive
community and tradition. Observing that the interpretive community doesn't
take it too seriously, he doesn't feel obligated to take it too seriously
either.
4. Average Catholics and mainline denominationalists don't bother to read
the sign but will stop if the car in front does.
5. A fundamentalist, taking the text very literally, stops at the stop sign
and waits for it to tell her to go.
6. A seminary educated evangelical preacher will research the meaning of
"STOP" and discover that the word indicates something which prevents motion
(i.e. plug for drain) or a location to leave passengers. The lesson is that
STOP signs indicate clogged traffic, so it's a good place to drop riders.
7. An orthodox Jew takes routes devoid of stops to eliminate the risk of
disobeying the Law.
8. A scholar from the Jesus Seminar concludes that the passage "STOP" was
never uttered by Jesus, since he would not stifle peoples' progress. So, STOP
is a textual insertion from stage III of the gospel tradition, when the
church was first confronted by traffic in its parking lot.
9. A New Testament scholar notices that there is no stop sign on Mark street
but there is one on Matthew and Luke streets, and concludes that the ones on
Luke and Matthew streets are both copied from a sign on a street no one has
ever seen called "Q" street. Extensive research has been done on the
differences between stop signs on Matthew and Luke streets, but nothing to
explain the meaning of the text.
10. An Old Testament scholar points out that there are a number of stylistic
differences between the first and second half of the STOP. The "ST" contains
no enclosed areas and five line endings, whereas "OP" contains two enclosed
areas and only one line termination. He concludes that the author for the
second part is different from the author on the first part and probably lived
hundreds of years later. Other scholars determine that the second half is
itself actually written by two separate authors because of similar stylistic
differences between the "O" and the "P."
11. Another OT scholar notes that the stop sign would fit better into the
context three streets back, having been moved to its present location by a
later redactor. He thus exegetes the intersection as though the sign were not
there.
12. Yet another OT scholar amends the text, changing the "T" to "H". The
resulting SHOP is much easier to understand in context than "STOP" because of
the multiplicity of stores in the area. The textual corruption is easily
explained as a form geschichte alteration. Thus, the sign announces the
existence of a shopping area. If this is true, it could indicate that both
meanings are valid, thus making the message "STOP & SHOP."
13. A "prophetic" preacher notices that the square root of the sum of the
numeric representations of the letters S-T-O-P (sigma-tau-omicron-pi in
Greek), multiplied by 40 (the number of testing), and divided by 4 (the four
corners) equals 666, the dreaded "mark of the beast." All STOPS are therefore
satanic.
|