ABSTRACT
The title of 'the French Book'- as Malory would say-is Penser Ia Bible, which is absolutely not the same thing as 'thinking biblically'. Both titles form a strange oxymoron. 'Penser' is the task of the philosopher, at least the ambition of' il penseroso'. Technically speaking, it means to bring the Bible as object to a clear understanding of its inner logic as text. This is or this was what the structuralists did with texts such as the Bible. But Ricreur means something else when he uses the verb 'penser', and this meaning can be found in the hermeneutic principles developed throughout his works. The question is not one of 'thinking' in the sense of projecting philosophical categories onto the biblical text, nor even of taking it as a 'pretext' to assimilate it within a philosophical system (as Fichte does, for instance); no, the question is that of comprehension, of Verstehen in the Heideggerian sense. In 'Philosophy and Religious Language', Ricreur says that, for Heidegger, 'Verstehen is diametrically opposed to Be.findlichkeit in the measure that Verstehen is addressed to our ownmost possibilities and deciphers them in a situation that cannot be projected because we are already thrown into it.' 1 And he adds: 'In theological language this means that "the kingdom of God is coming": that is, it appeals to our innermost possibilities beginning from the very meaning of this kingdom, which does not come from us.' If that is the case, then 'thinking biblically' seems to be more appropriate than 'penser Ia Bible' .2
