EXEGESIS

[Dr. Goodword]

• exegesis •

Pronunciation: ek-sê-jee-sis • Hear it!

Part of Speech: Noun

Meaning: A clarification, commentary, or explanatory note, especially one dealing with a passage in literary or religious writings

Notes: Words that end on -is in English always form their plural by replacing the -is with -es, so the plural of today's word is exegeses, just like crises, bases, and analyses are the plurals of crisis, basis, and analysis. A person good at writing or giving exegeses verbally is called an exegesist.

In Play: The scriptures are not the only texts in need of exegeses: "Without Nerdley's frequent exegeses of the instruction manual, I would never have gotten the computer up and running." As you can see, an exegesis may be verbal as well as written: "No, they didn't fire me; the boss just gave me a little exegesis of my job and told me to do better at it."

Word History: Today's Good Word is a carbon copy of Greek exegesis "interpretation" from exegeisthai "to interpret", comprising ex "out (of)" + hegeisthai "to lead"; an interpretation leads us out of confusion. The Greek root here, heg-, comes from Proto-Into-European sag-, which also trickled down to English as seek. In Latin it emerges in sagax "perceptive" from sagire "to perceive", a root English borrowed in the words sage and sagacious.

[Perry Lassiter]

Exegesis, of course, is used often in scholarly Bible study, and it can be compared to exposition. Exegesis is more technical, rooted in Hebrew and Greek, their grammar and syntax. Exposition is explaining the text in plainer speech so the listeners can follow. Exposition hopefully has roots in exegesis, but the latter should be simpler and less technical. You can see the difference in commentaries. The first set of Interpreter's Bible had each page divided into an upper and lower part. The upper was intended as the technical, exegetical part, and the lower the exposition. Of course, they overlap, and some may argue my division. Nevertheless, you can easily find the contrast in the two words useful.

[Slava]

Delayed reaction, but thanks for the, the,... what? Does your post go under the exegesis or exposition category? Or simply explication?

Excellent points, however you choose to define them. Thanks again.

[LukeJavan8]

There was a time, and it probably still exists, that if
one wanted to do exegesis of a scripture text,
one need to know Hebrew and Greek. Today, one
wonders: even the Dead Sea Scrolls are on the
Internet.

[Perry Lassiter]

To me, Biblical exegesis implies use of Greek or Hebrew. I assume one could read language commentaries that often transcribe the words into English letters. Slava, my intent was to contrast exposition with exegesis as often used, thus elucidating exegesis. Both are explication.