Tag Archive for 'interpretation'

Tradition & Heresy

Published by cchrisr May 1, 2008 in Essays and Theology. 10 Comments

(This is the fourth and final part of a series on tradition. Part One, Part Two, Part Three.)

Tradition is best defined as the cyclical interaction between orthodoxy and scriptures. It can be seen most in the way that scriptures have been transformed through the course of time in their interaction with orthodoxy. Brevard Childs has provided an excellent resource for this: his book The Struggle to Understand Isaiah as Christian Scripture. This one work is a wonderful collection of texts from as early as the second century with the most influential church fathers to as late as ten years ago; it is one of the best collections covering the way that the book of Isaiah has been reinterpreted throughout Christianity. As the book revolves around the interpretation of Isaiah from the second century to the twenty-first century, it is worth a brief look to show the interaction between orthodoxy and scriptures.

Isaiah as an Example
Childs begins with Justin Martyr’s take on Isaiah. Justin reads in Isaiah the prophecies of the virgin birth and the suffering servant, particularly seeing the death of Christ as being symbolic of the Passover lamb. Yet Justin also has his own radical interpretations, such as applying the attacks in Isaiah 3 and 5 on the eighth-century Jewish leadership to the Jews of his own day [Brevard Childs, Struggle to Understand Isaiah as Christian Scripture (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2004): 41].

The first two interpretations carry to this day, but the third was eventually excluded in later (much later) generations. It is already here that there is an influence of scripture on orthodoxy, which gets re-interpreted as the basis for later interpretations.

Soon after Justin, Irenaeus added a few interpretations of his own. His chief addition was in interpreting Isaiah 7 and 9 as indicating the divine and human nature of Jesus [Childs, 51]. Irenaeus is also one of the first church fathers to quote at length Christian writings and treat these as canonical literature. By the end of the third century, orthodoxy had equalized about the nature of Christ and began to flesh out its view of the incarnation of Christ. Eusebius in the third century is fixated by this idea and dedicates four chapters of his Demonstratio Evangelica to it [Childs, 83]. Furthermore, Eusebius authored the earliest extant commentary on Isaiah—evidence that Isaiah had successfully crossed over from Jewish to Christian scripture [Origen authored the first, but it is lost].

The interaction has thus far developed in this way after the death and resurrection: the early Christian community sought to read the Jewish scriptures through the lens of the death and resurrection, which lead them to the passages in Isaiah (as well as others) that could be re-read as foretelling Jesus. By appealing to these Jewish scriptures for Christian theology, they had created the first connection between scriptures and orthodoxy: one had to believe in the death of Christ as a symbol of the Passover lamb. By making this first connection, Christianity treated Isaiah now as Christian scriptures; the first cycle. Within just 100 years, this cycle was completed again as orthodoxy included the virgin birth, the divinity of Jesus, and the human incarnation of God. By 400 CE, Isaiah was so integral to orthodoxy that it had gained acceptance throughout Christianity. This was the case with most of the books accepted into the canon at the second Council of Carthage.

Changes and Alterations
There are also cases where orthodoxy has changed scriptures, either by removing texts from the canon or modifying the actual texts. One such instance is the story of Bel and the Dragon from the Septuagint . Not only was this text attested by fathers of orthodoxy (Irenaeus, Tertullian, Origen) [Lee McDonald, The Formation of the Christian Biblical Canon (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1995): 103], but it was also accepted at the Council of Carthage. It was removed during the Reformation first by protestants in their struggle to return to the Jewish scriptures, even though it appears in the original 1611 Authorized Version as well as being listed in the Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England.

There is also a second form of orthodoxy interacting with scripture: deliberate alterations. In the Gospel of Luke’s account of Jesus’ baptism, there is a point where God speaks from the heavens saying “You are my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased” [Luke 3:23, NRSV]. Yet many early variants record God saying “You are my Son, today I have begotten you.” Bart Ehrman believes that this variant is the earlier, more original text which was changed in order to prevent an adoptionist reading of the passage [Bart Ehrman, Misquoting Jesus (New York: HarperOne, 2005): 159-160]. It is highly likely that this is the case, but it brings up the question on how orthodoxy and scripture should interact.

Theologians today seem to suggest that it should be a simple relationship indicated by fidelity to the original texts (or what we can gather as such) coupled with studious translation and interpretation to that. On the other hand, history has consistently suggested that orthodoxy and scripture should define and change the other, even at the cost of losing the most original documents. It may be better to see scriptures “not primarily as a chronicle but as a testimony of faith in the One who identified himself to Moses from the burning bush” [Jaroslav Pelikan, Whose Bible is it? (New York: Penguin, 2005): 31].

Tradition is arguably the most important aspect for the longevity of a religion. While it is normally seen as the handing down of beliefs from one generation to the next, it should also be seen as that which is handed down, particularly the interaction between orthodoxy and scriptures. This interaction is a never-ending cycle of alteration and redefining, sometimes subtle (and sometimes not-so-subtle). The relation most often seen is scriptures defining orthodoxy. Yet the reciprocal also happens, perhaps more often than some admit; orthodoxy changes scriptures through either interpretation or in modifying the set of accepted scriptures. These two functions play on each repetition of each other throughout multiple generations. Whereas some people see this as problematic, it should be embraced as an integral part of the nature of religious movements as they are concerned ultimately with the nonphysical, be it God, nirvana, rebirth, or the end of ages. Faith is not a matter of fidelity to a group of texts but rather that which inspired those texts.

Adventures in Hermeneutics

Published by cchrisr January 10, 2008 in Religion. 9 Comments

When it comes to , too many people believe they’ve got some kind of divine handling on interpreting the Bible. We’ll briefly outline two cases of hermeneutics in order to give evidence that interpreting the Bible is not as simple as some may believe.
Our two cases are the and the US Constitution. Why the Constitution and not something like Homer’s Odyssey? Simple. Homer’s Odyssey has little value in a person’s life. If something is misinterpreted in it, there are no repercussions or consequences. If we are to treat the NT as something important, then it is not logical to compare it to something unimportant. So now, on to the show!

Dates and Names
The US Constitution was adopted on 17 September 1787 and later ratified by conventions in each state. The autograph (original document) is located in the National Archives and on display still today. It is just over 220 years old. We have records of who attended the Constitutional Convention, as well as personal journals from many of these members concerning the Constitution and its creation. In addition, we have the signatures of all of the delegates.

To be generous, we’ll say that the New Testament was written by various authors between 40 and 120. Our first complete copy is , which is believed to have been written in the early fourth century with 330 being the earliest date.

Given these dates, there is a 210 year gap between the latest writing date of the NT and the earliest date of CodSin. We do possess fragments that date earlier. P52 is the earliest known fragment and contains just a few words from John 18. It dates to 150. We have no personal journals of the authors of the NT today. In fact, besides Paul, John, and Peter, no other author is named in the NT. This is expected when dealing with a document that is nearly 2000 years old. Compared to other ancient documents, this is at the high end of transmission fidelity.

The Rub
The US Constitution has always been highly debated. This is why we have a judicial system in which judges try to determine the intent of the Constitution. By 1810–25 years after the Constitution was signed–there were differing views on interpreting the Constitution, even by some of the original delegates! Even today, if one would question Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Clarence Thomas about the Constitution, one would find two very different approaches and answers.

The NT has also had a history of being highly debatable, but this has lessened in recent history. Today, all too many people believe that their interpretation of the NT is the only viable interpretation. They ignore (or are completely unaware of) the history of hermeneutics with regards to the NT. So, how is one to interpret the NT and the Bible? That remains to be determined, but asserting that one particular must be the correct one seems to be the one position that denigrates the NT and the history of Christianity.

Nietzsche’s Duplicities

Published by cchrisr November 23, 2007 in Philosophy. 1 Comment

Note: While this may be rather long reading, it servers two purposes: to introduce a particular reading of Nietzsche and to give some background study on Deleuze who is the next subject of my “Faith Problems” series. One cannot read Deleuze without knowing Nietzsche.

How does one read ? Is there a way to remain faithful to Nietzsche’s thought? In what ways is one a “Nietzschean”? Reading Nietzsche requires seeing a philosophy of contradictions, duplicities, and inconsistencies.

In Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Nietzsche depicts noon as the time “when man stands in the middle of his way between beast and overman.”1 Noon is the period of transition between many things; one is neither one or the other but a multiplicity. This idea of the “Great Noon” runs throughout Nietzsche’s writings and presents a lens through which Nietzsche can be understood. Throughout his writings, Nietzsche presents a of singularity where a person is never exactly one thing but always in the state of . This lens should not be seen as a looking-glass to understand Nietzsche completely; Nietzsche’s philosophy has made it impossible to view from some kind of “objective” point of view.

Just as Nietzsche’s genealogies trace the presuppositions of a concept, we can also trace the presuppositions of his writings and philosophy; and sometimes these are contradictory. One cannot read his critique of without also seeing his defense of truth; it is not “Dionysius versus the Crucified” as a battle of two different things but rather a struggle of two extremes of the same thing within a person. This is how he paints his concept of the —and the Crucified.

Critiquing Truth
One focus of Nietzsche’s thought is that of truthfulness. It is sometimes deeply buried within Nietzsche’s works and often missed on casual readings. Yet he begins the preface to Beyond Good and Evil with the question “Supposing truth is a woman—what then?”2 He also hints at his take on her: “What is certain is that she has not allowed herself to be won”3–truth is to be pursued, but it is a difficult task. This is because truth is a multiplicity—between two extremes of the same concept.

Nietzsche consistently affirms truth and knowledge. He thinks that he has found a radically new view of truth: “Perhaps nobody yet has been truthful enough about what ‘truthfulness is.’”4 So, what has he found that no other philosopher has found before? One extreme of truth that he sees is the idea of a transcendent, objective, universal truth—the “truth” of science. All philosophers have treated their discoveries as this great “truth”: “They all pose as if they had discovered and reached their real opinions through the self-development of a cold, pure, divinely unconcerned dialectic.”5 For Nietzsche, it is clear that none have truly plumbed the depths of knowledge and found any kind of truth fit to be called transcendent. These philosophers have instead “[stood] truth on her head and [denied] perspective, the basic condition of all life.”6 Ironically, however, Nietzsche claims his own critique of this inversion to be “objective”!7 This is because of the opposite extreme, perspectivism: “Supposing that this also is only interpretation—and you will be eager enough to make this objection—well, so much the better.”8 This is an instantiation of truth as an individual’s truthfulness, which Nietzsche ultimately affirms as the highest virtue.9

This analysis of truth now exposes “everything that has hitherto been called ‘truth’…as the most harmful, insidious, and subterranean form of lie.”10 Here, Nietzsche begins to unearth the myth—the stories—behind all things held as “true.” Truth cannot be anything objective because that concept involves a contradictio in adjecto—these “immediate certainties” are subject to an unquestioned I that performs the thinking. Nietzsche’s response to such a thought is “it is improbable that you are not mistaken; but why insist on the truth?”11 All truth is in reality an of truth, which Nietzsche implies in his fragment “On Truth and Lie in an Extramoral Sense”:

What, then, is truth? A mobile army of metaphors, metonyms, and anthropomorphisms—in short, a sum of human relations, which have been enhanced, transposed, and embellished poetically and rhetorically, and which after long use seem firm, canonical, and obligatory to a people: truths are illusions about which one has forgotten that this is what they are; metaphors which are worn out and without sensuous power; coins which have lost their pictures and now matter only as metal, no longer as coins.12

We can see here Nietzsche’s one extreme of in its full splendor. As metaphor, truth is unable to be transcendent because it is bound by human language and experience.

Affirming Reality
The birth of the overman is intrinsically tied to the death of God. The duplicity of life and death is, for Nietzsche, tied together at their roots. The first time Nietzsche writes about the death of God, the news is delivered by a madman to the marketplace; yet the more shocking part is that God was murdered by men.13 Ironically, however, the madman never answers his questions as to how or why men killed God. The answers to these questions are the ugly truths which only truthful men can bring.

The death of God is something that must be overcome not synthesized into a Hegelian dialectic. It is not a singular point of objective, transcendent truth; it is a multiplicity. God dies many kinds of deaths, as is fitting for all gods.14 First and foremost, “God died of his pity for man.”15 Later in Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Zarathustra expands upon this while talking to the retired pope: pity strangled God because God could not bear the sight of man hanging on the cross.16 This may answer how God has died, but it does not yet face the ugly truth of why God has died. For this, Nietzsche turns to morality: “I have already in the fourth act killed all the Gods—for the sake of morality!”17

It is not enough to see the death of God as an act against Christianity for it must also be seen as the capstone in the revaluation of all values. The death of God is so the overman can live; it is the symbol of truthfulness, of morality, and of redemption. Nietzsche’s of values is a new creation that stands in contrast to the old values: “We free spirits are nothing less than a ‘revaluation of all values,’ an incarnate declaration of war and triumph over all the ancient conceptions of ‘true’ and ‘untrue.’”18

Nietzsche’s new values are found in what he calls the , the artistic and anti-Christian manner of valuing life.19 It is in Greek tragedy that Nietzsche finds the supreme affirmation and valuation of life which has been perverted and inverted in Socratic and Christian thought. Within tragedy, Nietzsche sees the duplicity of the Apollonian and Dionysian forms of art. Here, the truth of reality is portrayed as “the Dionysian chorus which ever anew discharges itself in an Apollonian world of images.”20 Greek tragedy transforms the man into a satyr and is able to experience the wisdom of nature.21 Nietzsche’s new values are in reality the oldest values of the earth.

It is Nietzsche who, by perceiving the truth with all of its beauty and ugliness, rediscovers this and fights to bring truth back into philosophy and morality. Where is it that Nietzsche finds this lost truth? Within himself: “Revaluation of all values: that is my formula for an act of supreme self-examination on the part of humanity, become flesh and genius in me.”22

Duplicity of Singularity
Through his self-examination, Nietzsche finds not a being or any agent of action but a flux of becoming. It is not a self that is unified through time—a transcendent self—but a self that is always between multiplicities. He sees himself in multiple ways as different selves that are the same: “I am a Doppelgänger, I have a ’second’ face in addition to the first. And perhaps also a third.”23 This is the multiplicity of becoming that any conception of “being” in the former sense loses meaning because “whatever has being does not become; whatever becomes does not have being.”24 Nietzsche is the first philosopher to fully reject the task of ontology and transvalue all ontological philosophy into the philosophy of becoming and multiplicity.

By now, the answer should be obvious as to how one should read Nietzsche. His writings are full of multiplicities and contradictions. He cannot be read as a coherent singularity that revolves around one focus; it is always many, five or six, three or two, but never one. In between these points, however, Nietzsche’s sense becomes apparent and felt. Nietzsche’s contradictions form the basis of his thought; they cannot be explained away in the service of a systematic Nietzschean thought. His immorality is a method of returning to morality. His affirmations are negations and his negations are affirmations. Nietzsche’s singularity is in his duplicity.

Nietzsche is not to be followed at all: “I want no ‘believers’; I think I am too malicious to believe in myself; I never speak to masses.— I have a terrible fear that one day I will be pronounced holy: you will guess why I publish this book before; it shall prevent people from doing mischief with me.”25 To truly follow Nietzsche means that one must reject him and lose him.26 Only then can one affirm his philosophy. To accept Nietzsche without rejecting him, without overcoming him, is to misread Nietzsche.

—-

1F. Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra (TSZ) I, “On the Gift-Giving Virtue,” 3 in W. Kaufmann, The Portable Nietzsche.
2F. Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil (BGE), Preface in W. Kaufmann, Basic Writings of Nietzsche.
3BGE Preface.
4BGE 177.
5BGE 5.
6BGE Preface.
7F. Nietzsche, The Antichrist (AC), 20 in W. Kaufmann, The Portable Nietzsche.
8BGE 22.
9F. Nietzsche, Ecce Homo (EH), “Why I Am a Destiny,” 3 in in W. Kaufmann, Basic Writings of Nietzsche.
10EH, “Why I am a Destiny,” 8.
11BGE 16.
12F. Nietzsche, “On Truth and Lies in an Extramoral Sense” (TL) in W. Kaufmann, The Portable Nietzsche.
13F. Nietzsche, The Gay Science (GS), 125.
14TSZ IV “Retired.”
15TSZ II “On the Pitying.”
16TSZ IV “Retired.”
17GS 153.
18AC 13.
19F. Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy (BT), Attempt at Self-Criticism (ASC) 5.
20BT 8.
21BT 9.
22EH, “Why I am a Destiny,” 1.
23EH “Why I am so Wise,” 3.
24TI “’Reason’ in Philosophy,” 1.
25EH, “Why I am a Destiny,” 1.
26TSZ I “On the Gift-Giving Virtue,” 3.

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