Bradshaw,
Paul F. The
Search for the Origins of Christian Worship: Sources and Methods for the Study
of Early Liturgy. Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1992.
This book offers a short introduction to the methods and sources for liturgical study. It also offers a concise summary of the major theological insights into Christian worship that can be drawn from the eucharist, initiation (entrance into eucharist) and daily prayer as they are celebrated within the liturgical year.
Hoffman, Lawrence A. Beyond the Text: A Holistic Approach to Liturgy. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1987.
Identifies two earlier text-based methods in Jewish liturgical studies: source criticism (Zunz) and form criticism (Heinemann) and proposes a further “holistic” method that will go beyond textual study to consider their performative contexts.
Taft,
Robert. Beyond East and West:
Problems in Liturgical Understanding. Revised
ed. Rome: Pontifical Oriental
Institute, 1997.
A
series of essays that deal with liturgy, both Eastern and Western, from the
standpoint of history, theology, and pastoral practice using the methods of
comparative historical scholarship. The
book demonstrates contemporary misconceptions about the nature of history and
its use in theological understanding and argues that historical methods are
significant because tradition is not the past, but the present understood
genetically, in continuity with that which produced it.
Zimmerman, Joyce Ann. Liturgy as Language of Faith: A Liturgical Methodology in the Mode of Paul Ricoeur’s Textual Hermeneutics. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1988.
Employing the linguistic and philosophical categories of Ferdinand de Sassure, Paul Ricoeur, and Roman Jakobson, Zimmerman illustrates the applicability of three methodological moments – participation (pre-understanding), distanciation (explanation), appropriation (self-understanding) – in the hermeneutical engagement with liturgical texts.
Zimmerman, Joyce Ann. Liturgy and Hermeneutics. Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 1999.
Identifies central questions and overviews historical development of hermeneutics. Surveys critical (diachronic, synchronic) and post-critical (structuralist, semiotic) methods and suggests their applicability in future liturgical studies.