Confronting the centuries. . - Books - book review

Richard A. Horsley, ed. Paul and Politics: Ekklesia, Israel, Imperium, Interpretation: Essays in Honor of Krister Stendahl. Harrisburg, Pa.: Trinity Press International, 2000.

This collection of essays comes from the Paul and Politics Group within the Society of Biblical Literature, a group of progressive scholars challenging the traditional mainstream of academe and demonstrating that the apostle Paul did after all pay close attention to the political and ideological environment of his congregations. The volume is dedicated to Krister Stendahl (long a faculty member at Harvard Divinity School), who for forty-some years has made Pauline studies more responsive to the contemporary status of humans in their society -- both in the first and the present centuries. Stendahl is honored for being a pioneer in reorienting biblical studies in ways that confront the centuries of conventional interpretation of Paul along individualistic lines that also imply anti-Judaism and disdain toward women. But the guild of traditional scholarship has not welcomed efforts of interpretation by feminist, African American, and postcolonial voices. So it was that the Paul and Politics Group was founded with in the S.B.L. to provide a forum for a socio-economic interpretation of the texts, the social contexts and power relations which the apostle's words often reflect. From this collaboration the present book takes its shape. Its four divisions reflect the first four years of the group (1996-99) and its initial themes: Paul and the politics of interpretation, Paul and empire (especially as seen in 1 Corinthians), Paul and the politics of Israel, and Paul and the politics of the assemblies (congregations).

The first section sets the tone. Neil Elliott traces the paradigm shift in Pauline studies away from the older agenda of personal justification by faith vs. Jewish "works-righteousness and toward a more public context. Paul preached a message (to euangelion, "news of victory") of a new Lord (kyrios) who has triumphed over opposing powers and will return (parousia) just as ancient kings or generals did at the city gates. A study of Paul's rhetoric should not simply seek parallels with the literary deposits of the privileged classes, which constitute the bulk of surviving manuscripts and which were intended to persuade the masses to glorify their rulers; instead it should be contrasted with the coercive rhetoric of empire that intimidated slaves, the underclasses, and those colonized. To understand this language we need a more nuanced analysis of the whole range of colonial strategies by which the subjugated responded to or resisting a formidable array of imperial pressures. This essay is followed by one by Eli sabeth Schussler Fiorenza on the politics of interpretation, in which she underlines the exegete's responsibility for the practical effects of his/her work--what Stendahl two decades ago called "the public health aspect of interpretation." The new paradigm of "engaged scholarship" is able to see aspects of the text overlooked by what Schussler Fiorenza labels the "scientific malestream interpretation," so that when the two are used together the combination of ethical and cognitive criteria yields better results than either singly. For instance, Paul's fondness for dichotomies derives from an attempt to establish identity through a strategy of "othering" those who differ. But this habit too easily reinforces a gender dualism that favors the masculine and suppresses the alternate voices in primitive Christian congregations. What is the antidote? She asks that interpreters today recontextualize such early rhetoric into the broader setting of various freedom struggles throughout Western history. In his response t o these essays, Robert Jewett wishes to amend Schussler Fiorenza's argument by claiming that usually it is not Paul but, to the contrary, his conversation partners who reinforce "othering" and imperial power politics; thus Paul is the one who represents inclusiveness and freedom. In the infamous Romans 13 passage, for instance, the God who grants authority to governments is not like the emperor or the gods of the pantheon or civic cults, but is the God represented by the crucified Jesus. The whole context shown in the latter chapters of Romans is a series of exhortations to mutual love and servanthood, and with this every taint of imperialism is left behind.

The second section uses 1 Corinthians as the lens through which to view the politics and rhetoric of empire. Richard Horsley points out how the rhetoric of "civil concord vs. chaos" was the clever culmination of four successive means by which power relations in Roman imperial society were maintained. Today, through rhetorical analysis, we can uncover how Paul himself put to use key terms of that rhetoric of unity in order to consolidate the Corinthian congregation and thereby subvert the wider political order. He did so, however, at the risk of rein-scribing imperial images within the congregation itself, his countermonarchial language serving to sanctify future monarchial trends in Christian polity and eventually the Constantinian establishment. A second source of Paul's rhetoric was Judean apocalypticism that promises judgment upon oppressive rulers, as well as martyrdom and then deliverance for God's people; but even these images could not resist being co-opted by a later Christian triumphalist establishme nt.