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Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch dedicated many essays to this subject. They may be found in English translation in his Collected Writings, Volume III; ISBN:0-87306-786-X. The primary tools Rabbi Hirsch uses in his analysis are the following ground rules, which he develops in the introductory chapter (slightly abridged for convenience): The symbolic ...

Here are a few things that might help point the interpreter in the right direction. (NOTE: This answer is from a Christian perspective) The referential nature of language Language is referential. If I say "I own a house," any English-speaker will recognize that I am referring to a place of residence. However, if I said "I own a lamaroutous" that would be ...

As is the nature of historical fields, such as the anthropological and linguistic fields which serve as our surest means of understanding such colloquial forms of language, at least some uncertainty or ambiguity will always haunt our attempts at determining the meaning of symbols, or most any other metaphor for that matter. Rationally speaking, it is a ...

If an author intends to communicate through symbols he must either rely upon a community's preexisting symbolic language or make an effort to define the meaning of the image within the text itself. Ruben Zimmermann in his book Imagery in the Gospel of John thus offers two criteria for weighing a symbols plausibility: (1) conventional plausibility and (2) ...