Review of Three Views on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament ed. Bock, Enns, Kaiser

I would like to direct your attention, to what I view as a both fair assessment and scathing critique of Kaiser's position in Three Views. Steve Moyise has articulated a very insightful review, available in the Review of Biblical Literature May 2009 Edition (see the RBL blog). I believe that Moyise has captured the subtle nuances and significance offered in this volume by both Bock and Enns, while rightly identifying the naivete offered by Kaiser's outmoded hermeneutical suggestions.

Fantastic Resource on Romans: "Coded Resistance: A Proposed Rereading of Romans 13:1-7" by Sze-Kar Wan

As a grader at for a graduate exegetical class on the book of Romans, I am constantly looking for cutting edge critical resources. Two years ago, I heard a most compelling paper at a conference held at Southern Methodist University called Religion and Empire which hosted a robust panel of critical scholars from various disciplines within biblical and theological studies. Among the presenters were Sze-Kar Wan, Abraham Smith, Joerg Rieger, Namsoon Kang, Marc Ellis, and others. One lecture that stood out was presented by Sze-Kar Wan, Professor of New Testament at Perkins School of Theology. Later I had the opportunity to meet Dr. Wan, who was not only an engaging scholar, but a genuinely kind man. I found out that his paper was subsequently published as "Coded Resistance: A Proposed Rereading of Romans 13:1-7" in The Bible in the Public Square: Reading the Signs of the Times, eds. Cynthia Briggs Kittredge, Ellen Bradshaw Aitken, and Jonathan A. Draper (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2008), 173-84.

Firstly, I would like to commend this entire volume to those interested in engaging the biblical texts through an imperial-critical optic. This text happens to be dedicated to the influence of Richard A. Horsley (something I was not aware of prior to owning the volume) and contains a host of provocative essays on a variety of biblico-theological issues from some world class thinkers: Warren Carter, Cynthia B. Kittredge, Steven J. Friesen, Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, and many others. The articles are arranged in a tripartite framework, namely, Biblical Insight into the Present Moment, Questioning ἐκκλήσια and the Academy, and Prospects for Politically Engaged Biblical Studies. Leaping from the Table of Contents are several topics such as C. Kittredge's "Echoes of Paul in the Speeches of George W. Bush," A. Callahan's "American Babylon: Days in the Life of an African-American Idea," S. Friesen's "The Blessings of Hegemony: Poverty, Paul's Assemblies, and the Class Interests of the Professoriate," A. Smith's "'Nobody Tasted Blood in It': Public Intellectuals Interrogating Myths of Innocence in Biblical Studies," and E. S. Fiorenza's "Reading Scripture in the Context of Empire" just to name a few.

Secondly, I would like to commend specifically Sze-Kar Wan's article for anyone critically engaging Romans 13:1-7, a text that has been frequently democratized into a biblical mandate for American patriotism. That is not to say that everyone has been compelled by such a prima facie reading of imperial complicity, but many have. What Wan proposes is a "rereading" with an eye to the conflictual nature of the text and its readers; indeed, he underscores the duality of the discourse as read by "insiders," those Roman Christians who would be familiar with the message of the early Jesus movement and Paul's thought over against the powerful, ruling elite who may read the text as reinforcing the dominant class's own view of themselves (174). Wan employs a "two-level reading" (a development inspired by Herzog, "Dissembling") akin to John C. Scott's public and hidden scripts (cf. Domination and the Arts of Resistance). This reading strategy offers the tools to decipher a functional duality within the text, a surface reading through one socio-politically situated community and a reading that individuals in a shared cognitive environment, privy to the religious convictions of the early Jesus movement, would have likely perceived. Moreover, this unmasks the "coded resistance" evidencing the "safe" reading for the elite, which enshrines the subversive, subtle script of resistance. Wan's lexical, exegetical, and biblical-theological moves are cohesive, cumulative, and should be reckoned with by those who tout the tacit Western imperial reading.

I have intentionally omitted a detailed analysis of his argument because I think it a very worthy read. However, I will say that his points regarding several subtleties in the text necessitate consideration, such as Paul's explicit fight elsewhere over the title διάκονος and its use in this passage (Wan, 179-81), the shift of number between ἐξουσίαις and ἐξουσία as well as οἰ ἄρχοντες and ἐξουσίαν (180-83), and others which are amply sustained with detailed observations illustrate the thought and effort Dr. Wan has exhibited in this work as well as the justification for his argument to be grappled with by those with opposing viewpoints.

Indeed, if one probes Wan's argument long, the question necessarily arises as to why the reigning reading of Romans 13:1-7 by the majority of so-called orthodox/conservative Christianity has been Paul acquiescing to Caesar and justifying the empire and her behavior; this, in turn, has translated into the legitimation of the Christian Right's theocratizing tendenz; and the commissioning of complicity with the whims of imperial leaders and their programs among the populace, regardless of the degree to which those enterprises stand in contradistinction to the way of Jesus. The implicit answer, I think, is because the modern American necessarily, devoid of the lexico-syntactic Κοινή indicators that Wan identifies (i.e. unable to see the subtlty couched in an ancient language and text), coupled with a Weltanschauung constructed largely by imperial power and legitimation, read the text as the ruling elite, as the world superpower, as the empire by which all peoples should do obeisance. Might the standard reading that Paul, contrary to his other stances toward empire, be instructing Christians to obey the rulers because disobedience is tantamount to disobeying God be a self-condemning reading, thereby convicting the imperial reader?

Regardless, Dr. Wan's exegetical case is one that must at least be considered when interacting with this text. As a grader, nothing is more of an affront than a paper that does not illustrate a clear and concerted attempt to find alternative viewpoints and weigh them critically, irrespective of the conclusions reached, whether one finally arrive at a "conservative" or "liberal" judgment, academic integrity necessitates a fair consideration of opposing viewpoints.

I will likely comment on several other chapters at future dates, but time presently does not permit it. Whatever tradition one finds themselves in theological or ideologically speaking this volume is one that should be reviewed by all.

Robert M. Price, Deconstructing Jesus

Deconstructing Jesus. By Robert M. Price. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2000. 266 pp. $34.00

The provocatively titled Deconstructing Jesus does not fail to disappoint in its erudite facility with the intersection of New Testament studies, literary criticism, historical criticism, and philosophy. Price presents his volume in eight core chapters framed in vitriolic, often humorous, and fundamentally skeptical prose. Price holds “Jesus Christ” to be a socio-religious moniker entailing a host of tertiary theological formulations and presuppositions (e.g. Chalcedonian Christology, nineteenth century views of inspiration and literalism, etc.) all of which necessitate critical reflection and deconstruction (pp. 11-12). Price eschews the very idea of so-called “historical Jesus” projects or “reconstructions” as “practically impossible and ill-advised” (p. 12). Indeed, he argues that because so many Jesus reconstructions are plausible that they therefore “cancel each other out” which gives rise to Price's own “Jesus agnosticism” (pp. 16-17). With the tone set, Price scrupulously proceeds to “deconstruct” the various Christianities within the plethora of ancient sources in order to undermine the modern notion of “Jesus” as a monolithic and even known figure.

In chapter one, Price assails the “myth of the early church” arguing for widely divergent “Christianities” many of which would hardly have been recognizable as “Christian” in a normative sense. Hailing F. C. Baur and Walter Bauer as “[t]wo of the most important investigators of early Christianity” he employs their initial formulations as starting points and seeks to press some of their conclusions (however tentative they might have been) to what Price perceives as their logical ends. With the degree of mention Price makes concerning philosophy throughout the work, it is rather odd that he failed to note even once the influence of Hegelian philosophy with its dialectic-evolutionary presuppositions embedded in the analyses of both Baur and Bauer. This betrays what later appears as Price's own underlying presupposition of a dialectical, history of religions approach to the materials (cf. pp. 29-32, 35-44).

Nevertheless, he proceeds to question the ideological factions perceived in the nascent documents. On the one hand, Price raises excellent questions of whether “orthodoxy” as such were existent at all in the way later historians (e.g. Eusebius) presented the story; however, Price's invective rhetoric persistently chiding any semblance of “Christian orthodoxy” seriously inhibits the effectiveness of much of his argumentation. The balance of chapter one through three yield, following Burton L. Mack's “pre-gospel” classifications the following movements: the Q community, the Pillars (Peter, James, John), the "heirs of Jesus" (the brothers of Jesus and James), the “community of Israel” (those who saw Jesus as the new Moses/Elijah figure), the synagogue reform movement, and the “Christ cults” (which he parsed into several cults). Each of these movements represents a rather diverse and independent cluster of religious followers each movement having its own “take” on Jesus. Price undermines the “big bang” theory, that is, the idea that the resurrection occurred giving rise to various trajectories of interpretation whether orthodox or heterodox. Rather the picture is one of a diversity of meanings of “Jesus” some completely removed from any notion of suffering/death or resurrection, which falls in line with and makes more complex the “Christ-myth” position. This is the case because Price finds Gnostic Redeemer myths already widely in circulation in the religious landscape of the Judean peoples of the time.

In chapter four Price argues extensively that the construct of Jesus in the NT supposedly antagonistic of “Pharisees” and “religious leaders” betrays the anachronisms embedded within the document. Rather, the Messiah of the NT is something of a “midrash” or compilation figure presented through a complex construction of layer atop layer with a bedrock of diverse, contradictory, Cynic sayings of “Jesus” (p. 100). Indeed, the “Son of Man” in the NT is merely a cipher for a hiding sage's agenda allowing “the dubious authority of some early Christian sage to recede behind the Torah-like clout of the Lord Jesus” (p. 103).

In chapter five, Price copiously labors to place the “Sufi” Islamic sayings of Jesus (twelfth century) alongside Q and Gospel of Thomas sayings developing a case that Jesus' death was not part of the original story. Indeed, he concludes “if we plot the trajectories of Christian evolution through the New Testament documents as Mack does, we will come up with multiple Christianities all the way back…” (p. 149). Hence, this constellation of Christ mystery cults and Jesus movements having nothing to do with one another validates both Price's idea that the Jesus could ever be known or indeed whether he, as such, ever existed.

In chapter six, Price courts Rene Girard's theory of the sacred scapegoat, bemoaning Girard's failure to press the theory through the Christ myth (p. 176). Herein Price posits the transposition of names for others all the while implying that Peter might be the Caiphas-figure and the disciples put him to death, or his death could have been faked which would comport with other ancient stories (a la Chapter seven). The book culminates with Price following Earl Doherty in seeing the construction of Jesus as midrashic compilation of OT antecedents which supposes that none of the events of Jesus are historical in any sense.

Ultimately, Price succeeds to offer a chiding work sure to evoke consternation. However, his arguments are convoluted and predicated upon a host of presuppositions that are at best tenuous. For instance, how probable is it that Luke-Acts was written so late that Marcion's version represents the earliest version of Luke [!] (p. 80). Where are opposing views to Price's radical theses? One will search the bibliography in vain finding a list of highly selective and agreeable sources to Price's unambiguous agenda. The work is fraught with a continually arising false dichotomy setting Price and his theories as representative of “critical scholars” over against fideists and Christian apologists. What is more, does Price actually represent “critical scholars” or only those who agree with himself (likely a more limited group). Is everyone who disagrees with Price's constructs ipso facto a fidiest? The irony, however, is that it is difficult to imagine how believers in Jesus, who he derides, exercise more of a fidiestic “leap” in supposing Jesus existed, died, and was believed by his followers to have been raised than Price himself exercises in supposing his “critical eye” discerns the layer upon layer upon layer of texts, communities, and confluence of myths to reach communities behind the communities exposing that “Jesus” is a construct and historically incredible. What of the non-Christian historical attestation to Jesus' existence? Nevertheless, his arguments would have been more compelling if they were better documented and argued in greater detail. The work took on so many radical theories that it did not prove convincing or probable in most of what was offered.

Politics of Parousia by Tat-Siong Benny Liew

I just finished Tat-Siong Benny Liew's Politics of Parousia: Reading Mark Inter(con)textually (Biblical Interpretation Series 44; Leiden: Brill, 1999). This was a fantastic read that I highly recommend and I will have a published review of this text later next year. However, for current discussion I would like to outline the argument and listen to any thoughts or reflections you might have about it.

From a biblical standpoint, Liew determined that the Markan parousia, stands in a rich tradition of Jewish apocalyptic literature which stands against imperial oppression and subjugation. First, he reasons that the Markan Jesus is painted in stark contrast to the Jewish authorities who are subtly identified with the kingdom of darkness. I found this to be one of the penetrating insights into the Markan narrative offered, that I for one, was previously unaware of or simply missed. At least in so far as he was able to show cogently that several linguistico-rhetorical features of the gospel (e.g. the use of the ἐκβάλλ-verbs, etc.) subtly tie the Jewish elite and "their house" with the dominion of the adversary (evidently this is something Mack and others have already alluded to, which I wasn't aware of). His reading was deeply textual, interacting skillfully with the text and language, more so than I had initially expected (though granted I had little basis for expectation!). Another feature that was rather unforeseen was how richly he treated the narrative from a biblical theology standpoint; this could well be my own (mis)assessment because I have only a marginal perspective of literary criticism as of yet.

The primary thesis he argued for, evidenced in the title of the work, was that the fundamental politic of the Markan parousia as eschatological event was a duplication of the ideology of the colonizer, namely, the Roman's "obey-or-be-destroyed" program! So the totalitarian vision of Jesus' sole judgment of the "righteous and unrighteous" and political reckoning, at bottom, was a repackaged "colonially mimicking" vision of the colonizer's ideology. Therefore, resistance to the colonial regime, being so inculcated by the ideology of empire, takes on the form and vision of empire even in its resistance. Hence, the best way I can describe what I think was his point, is that the vision of Jesus' return (parousia) setting the world to "rights" by the binary standard of "in" vs. "out" chiefly is the projection of the Imperial Caesar's mode of oppression by violence in cosmic religious terms. This is a very provocative thesis in my estimation, not only for what it says, but further what it leaves unsaid. Moreover, as a reader I continually found myself querying as to whether I was reading Albert Schweitzer or Liew. I realize this statement necessitates qualification, but I have yet to put my finger on exactly why, I kept getting that "feel." What does this mean for the parousia, in general? Ah, these are the questions that are forever unanswerable because methodologically we have departed in a sense from history in so far as authorship, date, occasion, etc. are matters out of reach and in a real sense out of bounds in his study. The whole exercise is "constructed" in Mark's narrative-world, which thereby alleviates some of the traditional questions and pitfalls. Maybe that is exactly the genius of the method, namely, dealing with the literature as a "piece of colonial literature arising during a certain historical milieu" and then analyzing the internal construct of the narrative world and actors vis-a-vis the colonial situatedness of the literature. There are still some issues in the method that seem unaddressed and I might well be reading the whole thing incorrectly, but this at present seems like a robust way to deal with the socio-political significance of the narrative in its historical context without the pitfalls of traditional "Introductory" material/debate. Any thoughts?

He goes on to analyze the way mark constructs colonial subjects first with an eye to the way he views "agency" and then to the way he constructs women. Chiefly, he throws several notable scholars' works, who argue strongly for a positive (or semi-positive) presentation of the role of women, to the flames, finding rather a "backseat" and rather negative view of women's role in society. This climaxes in his final chapter which draws together the previous work on Mark and sets it over against the Chinese American colonial experience. From this he harvests the "timeless, universal truth" (not Liew's language!): that the colonized of all times bear the danger of duplicating the ideology of their oppressors and in turn oppressing others (p. 158).