David Litwa on Deification in Paul

A belated congratulations to my friend and colleague, David Litwa on the publication of his book. I read parts while it was in progress, and it is a very learned volume. Litwa's approach is certainly more historical than most approaches to deification, but precisely therein lies its value. If you are interested in Paul, I recommend you read it. I will try to post a review in the near future.

De Lubac on Platonism and Stoicism in the Bible and the Fathers

"It is a commonplace to allude to the Platonism of the Fathers in connexion with these doctrines [of the cosmic body]. But instead of invoking the Platonic doctrine of essential being, we should do better to account for them--to the extent that they are dependent at all on a philosophic basis--by looking rather to the Stoic conception of universal being. There are many expressions in Marcus Aurelius, for example, regarding the integration of the individual in the concrete totality of the cosmos, and still more concerning the reciprocal immanence of those who are participators in the Nous. But all this is of secondary importance, and we should beware of adopting the practice known in accountancy as double-entry, as so many Protestant historians do in dealing with the Fathers and the Bible. For in the Fathers they will see nothing but Hellenistic borrowings and influence, whereas in St. Paul and St. John they will find nothing but 'pure revelation' or at least 'pure religion.' So severely critical an attitude on the one hand, such naive simplicity on the other, are in fact equally the causes of their blindness.

"For in whatever degree a philosophical basis was necessary to the Fathers, were it Platonist or Stoic, their speculation was conditioned less by considerations of philosophy than by a keen realization of the needs of Christianity. How else indeed could they make the most of the metaphor of the body and its members in the great Pauline epistles if they were to leave Stoicism out of account? Or how could they interpret with accuracy the epistle to the Hebrews if first they must eliminate all trace of Platonism? In fact, they never scrupled to borrow, and that to a large extent, from the great pagan philosophers whom they held in esteem. But, wiser than Solomon, they were not led into idolatry by their philosophy, and as a modern historian, Christopher Dawson, has remarked, we must go back to St. John and St. Paul if we would understand patristic thought."

--Henri de Lubac, Catholicism (transl. Lancelot Sheppard; New York: Sheed and Ward, 1958) 9-10. (Pages 40-1 in Ignatius Press version pictured above.)

John Ashton on Demythologization

In his splendid book on the Fourth Gospel, John Ashton has some truly wonderful turns of phrases.  It is one of the most erudite and humane books in biblical studies I have ever read.  One of the hidden gems can be found in his discussion of John 1.51 ("Amen, amen I say to you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man"):

"One of the difficulties of interpreting the saying satisfactorily is that the imagination, for once, is of no avail.  Confronted with the bizarre spectacle of the angels clambering up and down on the strange new figure of the Son of Man, it seizes and stalls.  This is a common experience of twentieth-century Westerners:  as they look at myth, they feel compelled, somehow, to demythologize.  But why should a demythologized myth be any more use than dehydrated water?  The medium is the message--it does not contain it or hold it imprisoned like a genie in a bottle, waiting to be released.  Somehow, then, we have to allow the picture of the ladder, base on earth and top in the clouds, to fuse with that of the Son of man, and at the same time to allow the busily climbing angels, some going up and others going down, to convey the message with which the evangelist has charged them" (249-50).

What is that message?  You'll have to check out the book, which besides being a thoroughly humane and cultured volume, mounts an impressive interpretation of the Fourth Gospel.

Incidentally...

Remember when I posted about "Constantinianism"?  I vaguely do, so I won't blame you if you don't.  Well, I have been enjoying (when not reading about Paul or writing about the Encratites) Peter Leithart's Defending Constantine.  Leithart draws on an impressive array of evidence and scholarship in his sensitive treatment of Constantine.  Let me humbly advise all who think Constantine was the worst thing to ever happen to the church to read this book.  I'm only about one third of the way in, but so far it is shaping up to be an excellent contribution.

Why pray? Oh, right.

The monastic literature of the fourth and early fifth centuries develops the pattern of a contemplative ascent through the moral life to the perception of reason and order in creation and thence to that openness to God as God which evades all conceptual definition and is true theologia.  In other words, the person who prays is the person who both in behaviour and in understanding restores order to a disordered world, a person who makes visible the effect of submission to logos; he or she is someone who vindicates the Christian faith as a scheme that unifies the world of experience rather than fragmenting it.  And the climax of the process is an acknowledgement of the absolute difference of God:  holiness is both living in an ordered universe and recognising that this order is derivative from a reality quite uncontainable within it.  It is as if the contemplative acts out in his or her life of prayer the relation between Christ's human and divine natures.  The mature life of contemplation is an embodiment of logos (just as it might have been for a certain kind of philosopher), but that logos emanates from a reality that cannot be encompassed by rational perception, only by love and radical detachment and the silencing of analytical and imaginative activity.  Just as in Christ, a human life is transfigured from within in function of an indwelling divine agency which is in loving relation with an infinite source.  In and with Christ, the believer represents both the unshakeable order of the universe and the utter freedom and mystery of the self-giving God. 

Rowan Williams, Why Study the Past?, 45-6.

Methodist seminaries (and ministers), take note

"Do I understand Greek and Hebrew? Otherwise, how can I undertake, as every Minister does, not only to explain books which are written therein but to defend them against all opponents? Am I not at the mercy of everyone who does understand, or even pretends to understand, the original? For which way can I confute his pretense? Do I understand the language of the Old Testament? critically? at all? Can I read into English one of David’s Psalms, or even the first chapter of Genesis? Do I understand the language of the New Testament? Am I a critical master of it? Have I enough of it even to read into English the first chapter of St. Luke? If not, how many years did I spend at school? How many at the University? And what was I doing all those years? Ought not shame to cover my face?" 

John Wesley, “An Address to the Clergy,” in Works X:491.

h/t Akma and the string he supplies

Mythologies and Metanarratives

The historical investigation of the life of Jesus did not take its rise from a purely historical interest; it turned to the Jesus of history as an ally in the struggle against the tyranny of dogma. Afterwards when it was freed from this pathos it sought to present the historic Jesus in a form intelligible to its own time. …Thus each successive epoch of theology found its own thoughts in Jesus; that was, indeed, the only way in which it could make him live.
But it was not only each epoch that found its reflection in Jesus; each individual created Him in accordance with his own character. There is no historical task which so reveals a man’s true self as the writing of a Life of Jesus. …The critical study of the life of Jesus has been for theology a school of honesty.

~~ Albert Schweitzer, The Quest of the Historical Jesus, pp. 4-5

Although postmodernism has influenced a substantial body of scholarship in biblical studies, self-consciously postmodern interpreters have often felt themselves on the margins of the biblical studies guild. The break-down of determinate meaning in texts brought with it a cadre of marginal readings: feminist, African-American, post-colonial, queer, etc. While these ways of reading the biblical texts have found wide acceptance on principal, the biblical studies guild remains conservatively interested in “historical-critical” methodology. In brief, the historical-critical mode of reading seeks meaning from the earliest form of a document, in its original historical context. This mode of reading privileges what was original to what is secondary, including the intention of the author. In their article, “An Elephant in the Room: Historical-Critical and Postmodern Interpretations of the Bible,” (Journal of Biblical Literature 128.2 [2009], 383-404) George Aichele, Peter Miscall and Richard Walsh narrate a story of two conflicting modes of interpretation. The article is composed as an invitation to discussion between the groups of scholars that embody these two modes of interpretation in their work. While there can be no doubt that more attention should be paid to this question, it seems to me that the authors have particular understandings of both postmodernism and historical criticism that unduly pit the two modes of interpretation at odds. After summarizing the argument of the article, I will raise some pointed questions about the framework and philosophical acumen of the authors. I will question both their mode of enquiry and their framing of the discussion. Finally, I will offer a few of my own thoughts on the utility and desirability of postmodernism in the discipline of biblical studies.

I. The Elephant in the Room

Aichele, Miscall, and Walsh begin with descriptions of postmodernism and historical-critical scholarship that pits the two perspectives as antitheses of each other. Historical criticism utilizes specific methods in order to “produce assured and agreed-on interpretations of the biblical text, whether these be understood as the author’s intention, the understanding of the original audiences, or reference to actual historical events” (384). “Postmodernism,” on the other hand, “is characterized by diversity in both method and content and by an anti-essentialist emphasis that rejects the idea that there is a final account, an assured and agreed-on interpretation, of some one thing—here the biblical text or any part of it” (384). Historical-critical scholarship is the child of modernity, whereas postmodern scholarship is, clearly, the child of postmodernity. The fundamental difference is that postmodernism is an internal critique of the modern (385). The goal of the article to increase fruitful conversation about what postmodernism and historical criticism may learn from one another. Although the authors claim they do not favor postmodern criticism over historical criticism, the direction of the article clearly favors postmodern criticism. The primary framework for the article is the concept of “mythmaking.” After a brief introduction of the problem, the authors introduce the idea that both historical-critical and postmodern ideologies are based on mythologies that legitimate them. A myth in this sense is a “community’s taken-for-granted common sense and the hermeneutic through which the community defines life, truth, rationality, and justice. Myth is the metanarrative (and attendant perspective) that establishes and defends the communal status quo” (388). Thus, myths also tend to support communities, at least in part by excluding others. Myth also “occludes the ideological perspective of the mythmaker(s) in order to present that perspective as true or ‘natural’” (389). In other words, myths basically fill the role of metanarratives in Lyotard’s discussion of postmodernism.

First, the authors attempt to elucidate the mythological of the historical-critical enterprise. In order to show the ideologies at work in the seemingly ideologically-neutral discipline of historical criticism of the Bible, the authors take a page out of Albert Schweitzer’s book and adumbrate the philosophical predilections of various historical scholars either of Jesus or of the Hebrew Bible. The review leads them to conclude, “Mythically, historical criticism reveals a deep desire to get back to some original, an arch¬ē or First Signified, which is always theological or ideological, such as the real Jesus or the actual ancient Israel. …The text’s truth, value, or meaning derives finally from its originating source, whether author(s), redactor(s), or historical milieu” (395). The origin is a theological concern with aspirations to universality. In theory, a single meaning can be found. The divisions between historians can be overcome with the proper amount of evidence, or by better historical work (396). But this paradigm is more romantic than realistic, and needs to be rethought. In order to do so, however, the entire paradigm must be rethought from a critical position, for which a “more theoretical or more meta-interpretative stance” such as postmodernism is required.

Postmodern mythology is quite different. Postmodernity is something like modernity that is uncomfortable with itself. It is fragmented, marked by multiplicity. Postmodernism is inherently suspicious: “It resists the desire for mythic metanarratives and prefers instead a multiplicity of partial, little narratives” (397-98). Unlike modernists, postmodernists have a rich sense of irony, both dwelling in but also recognizing the constructed quality of their myths (or, metanarratives). Rather than seeking a First Signified, postmodern interpretation dwells in the play of signifiers on the surface of texts. “Meaning is not located in the single text, planted there perhaps by an originating author, but instead meaning is only found between texts, as they are brought together in the insight (and corresponding blindness) of their various readers” (399). Thus, postmodern criticism can partake of the modernist metanarratives (including history), but it cannot rest there without pointing out the polysemy of the texts themselves.

Finally, the authors sketch what a postmodern historical criticism might look like. In postmodern context, the discipline of history would not so much try to discover “what really happened,” for “what really happened” is a construct based on our own interests. In other words, there is no description without interpretation. Historical criticism would need to “become more endlessly critical of itself and demythologizing of its own ideals” (401). Most importantly, historical criticism would need to give up any pretention to the acquisition of Truth. Postmodernism dictates that there can be no ultimate signified. The authors suggest five areas for collaboration between historians and postmodern interpreters: 1. Physical aspects of texts; 2. Intertextuality; 3. Ideology and translation; 4. Authorial intentionality; and 5. The semiotics of canon (403-4). In sum, the authors make a plea for historical critical interpretation of the Bible to become more thoroughly postmodern.

II. Is the Elephant actually in the Room?

The postmodernism of the authors is basically obvious. The main point is critical reflexivity. Interpreters of the Bible should understand their own ideological biases, and they should therefore not consider their own conclusions as somehow neutrally constructed or externally legitimated. The authors make much ado of Lyotard’s definition of postmodernism, especially highlighting the incredulous posture of postmodernists toward metanarratives. Part of the problem here is that it is not clear the authors really understand Lyotard. For Lyotard the problem with grand recits is not that their scope (i.e. that they are universal), but rather their claim to be externally legitimated (Lyotard, Postmodern Condition, esp. pp. xxiii-xxv, 6-9). The major difference is between narrative and scientific knowledge. “[N]arratives allow the society in which they are told, on the one hand, to define its criteria of competence and, on the other, to evaluate according to those criteria what is performed or can be performed within it” (Lyotard, PC, 20).  Scientific knowledge, on the other hand, rather than setting its own criteria for competence appeals to outside sources of legitimation (such as principles of falsification, repeatability, etc.). Scientific knowledge is deeply concerned with the notion of legitimation; narrative knowledge is indifferent to the question of legitimation, because pragmatically, it carries its legitimation in its transmission and reception.

This excursus into Lyotard does not entirely negate the argument Aichele, Miscall, and Walsh mount. They are certainly correct that a postmodern historical criticism should be more open to conflicting interpretations, and it should acknowledge the fiction, so to speak, of an original or final meaning of a text. But they are wrong to cast the “mythology” of historical criticism as essentially essentialist. As long as historical knowledge is produced in a narrative rather than a scientific mode, the universal scope of historical criticism could remain. In other words, as long as the constructed nature of historical discourse is acknowledged, and there is no appeal to an outside discourse (such as falsifiability) for legitimation, the largeness of the historian’s aspirations does not in any way disqualify the historian’s work from being postmodern. The kind of self-criticism Aichele, Miscall, and Walsh advocate for historical criticism to come of age is, in fact, already operative. Nearly all historians agree that every reconstruction is an interpretation, and there is no such thing as “the way it really happened.” Moreover, Schweitzer did not need to wait for postmodernity to be self-critical or to point demonstrate the reflexivity of the quest for the historical Jesus, as the opening quotation attests. Not only are the authors dogged from the beginning with a failure to fully comprehend what Lyotard actually argues, but also with a failure to accurately describe the phenomena “postmodernism” and “historical criticism.” So what is it that these authors are fighting for?

Intriguing on this account are the comments made about myth—namely, that it occludes the ideological perspective of the mythmaker (see quotation above). If this is so, then the authors argue postmodernism does the same, but this is precisely what the authors (and Lyotard!) would have us believe postmodernism does not do. The postmodern difference is its admission of self-legitimation. How then can we talk about postmodern mythology? Again, according to Lyotard, narrative (or mythic) knowledge does not so occlude its ideological roots; scientific knowledge does. More important, however, is what this move reveals about the authors. They do not understand postmodernism as narrative knowledge, but as scientific knowledge that seeks to legitimate itself in a different discourse (perhaps of ethics?). And indeed, in spite of themselves, this is how postmodernism functions in this article—as a scientific, second-order construct. Consider the following passage: “[A] defining characteristic and goal of postmodern hermeneutics is the desire for ideological self-criticism. …Perhaps if historical criticism and postmodernism could engage one another in more direct and substantial conversation, both would become more self-critical” (387). Interestingly, the mythology of postmodernism has somehow simply overridden the mythology of historical criticism here. Why should the postmodern impetus to self-criticism be the end goal of a conversation between historical and postmodern interpretive stances? The authors’ account of postmodernism is prescriptive, not simply descriptive, and therein lies the main rub. Incredulity toward metanarratives, it seems to me, cannot be forced; it is not a technique, it is a fundamental orientation toward knowledge. The question, then, is not whether we adopt postmodernism (as though it were instrumentally effective), but whether we, as postmoderns (if we are postmoderns) can engage in historical criticism.

The authors also seem concerned with the question of whether or not the driving motivation for history is theological. The search for an original or final signified, they aver, is inherently theological (see quotation above). The thrust of this observation seems to be critical—history, as a theological enterprise, is universalistic, and therefore not postmodern. But again, this is to misunderstand what Lyotard means by metanarratives. The authors on occasion remind the reader that fundamentalisms are part of the postmodern condition. Fundamentalisms are totalizing discourses, but they are self-legitimating, and therefore reflect postmodernity. Again, the question is not the scope of the narrative, but its source of and (lack of) concern with legitimation.

The authors are correct that a truly postmodern historical criticism will be self-critical and reflexive. But this is already the case. Postmodernism, as a cultural sentiment, has already infiltrated the biblical guild through its practitioners. To attempt to shift the practice of biblical criticism in the direction of the postmodern is ill-conceived, because it has not truly understood postmodernism. As the authors so often point out themselves, the postmodern only functions from within the modern, it is not something other than the modern. Likewise, postmodern historical criticism will appear as a discourse within historical criticism that points to the latter’s narrative. Historical criticism thereby shrinks to become a petit recit. It is another language game, another discourse whose criteria of competence are part of its narrative. In short, postmodern historical criticism will acknowledge Lessing’s ditch. For Lessing there was no connection between the “accidental truths of history” and the “necessary truths of reason.” The postmodernist will no doubt agree, but not because the accidental truths of history do not exist—they do, but only through the peculiar and constructed discourse we call history—but because there are no necessary truths of reason to which we can appeal to legitimate the accidental truths of history. Instead, there are the “necessary” truths of various families and species of reason, and history is one such species with its “necessary” truths, the validity of which are determined through their performance by the narratively adduced criteria of competence.

In short, one would expect a truly postmodern perspective on historical criticism not to be concerned with “theory” or “meta-interpretative stance;” rather, one might expect the postmodernist to ignore such theory and focus (as does Lyotard) on the pragmatics of historical discourse. Postmodern historical criticism of the Bible, then, might attend less to the truth of the documents at hand than to what such historical knowledge (to be distinguished from truth) does. Just as postmodernism is parasitic on modern metanarratives, so too postmodern historical criticism may be merely the augmentation of historical criticism, revealing its own narratival quality. Schweitzer’s words at the beginning of this essay indicate the self-revealing nature of historical Jesus research. The “school of honesty” continues apace, indifferent to questions of theory but more attentive than ever to the contours of its own narrative reflection. And in that work it cannot fail to be postmodern.