Veridiction in biblical miracles

Abstract

Veridiction is defined as the real mode of telling of a speech. It differs from the ontological concept of truth for referential extralinguistic context. In semiotics, the veridiction is constituted through the modulations of the categories of being and of seeming and is established by a fiduciary contract, a coordination of epistemic mechanisms installed in both enunciator and enunciatary. The biblical miracle narratives offer an interesting space for discussion on the mechanism of veridiction. To describe something impossible to accomplish these narratives highlighted the linguistic process which generates the sense. In this article, we’ll describe the concept and mechanism of veridiction according to the greimasian semiotics. Will also be presented the semiotic status and the programme narrative of the miracle with reference to the proposal of the Groupe d’Entrevernes. Finally, we’ll introduce the analysis of three miracles recorded in sequence in Luke’s Gospel and highlight two main brands of veridiction: narrative isotopy and the fabric of the fiduciary space. It will be demonstrated that the truth established in the texts is intrinsic and not extrinsic and through a process involving the interaction between the author/enunciator’s persuasive doing and the reader/enunciatary’s interpretive doing that transforms a conflictual espace, established by different beliefs-mother, in fiduciary space.