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Zurich on N. T. Wright (Part 3)

22. September 2016 | Christoph Heilig | 1 Kommentar |

For Part 1 of this series, see here. For Part 2, see here.

Jörg Frey: Demythologizing Apocalyptic?

Imagining a debate between two scholars of such status as N. T. Wright and Jörg Frey, you might think of a confrontation of truly “apocalyptic” dimensions. And at least with regard to the page count, this expectation is fulfilled by what you will find in God and the Faithfulness of Paul. On 42 pages, Frey offers an introduction to the apocalyptic interpretation of Paul, its prospects and limits, and argues that Wright is to a certain extent “neutralizing” what he regards to be essential characteristics of apocalyptic texts. Wright returns the compliment of exhaustive interaction by responding in 1/5 of his essay “The Challenge of Dialogue.”

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Frey opens directly by stating that it is “easy to observe that apocalyptic elements in Paul’s letters and thought have been assigned only a marginal place in Wright’s map of Paul’s mind” (GFP 489). In particular, he points to the “polemical and ironizing mention of those interpreters advocating an apocalyptic reading of Paul” throughout the book (ibid.). Frey suspects that Wright’s sensitivity for this issue might be due to the fact that this parameter could be the Achilles heel of Wright’s great narrative as interpretative framework (GFP 490).

In the first major section of his essay, Frey identifies four strategies in PFG to “tame or neutralize Pauline apocalyptic language” (GFP 490):

  1. The symbolic reading: Wright assumes (following Caird) that “biblical authors already knew that the world as a whole would not actually come to an end. They used and reused language, aware that it did not literally mean what they said” (GFP 493). Here Frey argues that “things are more complicated” (494) and concludes with regard to Paul: “Paul actually hoped for such change [as associated with the Parousia of Christ], and if we let Paul be Paul and do not create him according to our likeness, we should allow him to do so” (495).
  2. The socio-political reference: Here Frey doubts “whether the political dimension can be the general clue for understanding apocalyptic language,” arguing that even where a political dimension is present this does not “rule out the possibility that the author seriously imagined a transcendent reality intervening in the present world” (GFP 496).
  3. The presupposed “covenantal” worldview: Here Frey criticizes Wright for prioritizing the parameter of “worldview” in interpreting apocalyptic language: “The precise images, motifs, and terms do not matter because their real meaning is already determined by the presupposed worldview, the overall story or – as we might call it – the Wrightian ‘myth of redemption’” (GFP 497).
  4. Inaugurated eschatology: In this section, Frey claims that Wright downplays sections in Paul’s letters (e.g., 1 Thess 4:16-17) that are explicit with regard to future eschatology: “This is also an apologetic strategy. If something is unimportant, it disappears from focus” (GFP 499). By this classification, Frey means that “if we claim Paul as the predominant testimony for contemporary Christianity, we are always tempted to eliminate views that appear strange, mythological, or unbelievable and stress the ‘already’ (and search for any evidence that Paul himself already did so when interpreting his traditions)” (501-502).

Having put forward this criticism, Frey offers a lengthy excursus on the apocalyptic interpretation of Paul, focusing on Käsemann, Martyn and de Boer (GFP 502-512). This is followed by a synthesis of “recent perspectives” on apocalyptic literature (GFP 512-520), thus aiming at offering corrections to the notion of “apocalyptic” as found in both Wright’s PFG and the work of his “adversaries” (GFP 513). He concludes (GFP 520): “We can see that the concepts of apocalyptic applied by Käsemann, Martyn, and the Boer are inappropriate in view of the variety of the Jewish apocalyptic texts. But on the other hand, Wright seems to underestimate the variety of apocalyptic concepts as well. Not all of these texts share the Deuteronomistic pattern developed from the end of Deuteronomy and from Dan 9” (GFP 520).

On the basis of these considerations, Frey then moves on to provide his own sketch of Paul as “apocalyptic theologian” (GFP 520-522). He concludes: “In view of all those traditions adopted in Paul’s letters, it is quite obvious that the apostle (and probably already the Pharisee) was intensely influenced by the concepts of Second Temple Jewish apocalyptic, and although some of the ideas are rephrased in the light of the Christ event and related to the present state of the believers (as, e.g., the “new creation”), others are still considered future (as, e.g., the parousia of Christ, the resurrection of the dead, the defeat of Satan, or the vanishing of the present state of the world). Paul is undeniably an apocalyptic theologian, and only a stubbornly liberal or Bultmannian ideology could deny this in the interest of shaping the real Paul according to its own ideas” (GFP 522). Frey closes this section by relating a salvation-historical perspective to these considerations. He thinks that “apocalyptic and salvation history, or a ‘covenantal’ perspective, are not contradictory” (GFP 523). In this he agrees with Wright over against Martyn. However, he also cautions against presupposing that Paul is a covenant-theologian on the basis of a presupposed shared Pharisaic worldview and without much actual support in Paul’s letters (GFP 523). Since apocalyptic thought “is the fundamental question mark to worldly rule and contemporary theology,” neutralizing apocalyptic “is therefore a dangerous way of weakening the Christian message, perhaps as dangerous as making apocalyptic the center of everything” (GFP 524). The right path is thus been prescribed by Paul himself in 1 Thess 4:16-17: “This is neither ‘de-apocalypticizing’ nor ‘apocalypticizing,’ but a pastoral and theological perspective taken in view of the addressees with their probable Gentile background” (GFP 524).

Frey then rounds up his analysis by pointing to hermeneutical differences he identifies between his own approach and Wright’s perspective. He argues that in the end Wright does not allow Paul to be uncomfortable to us by not “being inductive or exegetical” but “deductive” in his method, i.e. “deriving conclusions from an overall pattern – the ‘storied worldview’ into which everything is integrated, including apocalyptic” (GFP 525). Be that as it may – and one might indeed accentuate that criticism in light of our analysis of Wright’s abductive approach (see above) – for Frey, at least, this evokes the impression that Wright is rather constructing than re-constructing in his analysis of Paul: The real Paul must have been much more unsystematic than Wright’s system presupposes (GFP 525) and this is ok also from a theological perspective: “If the biblical texts are not read with a fundamentalist ideology in terms of a true and inerrant representation of past and coming ‘history,’ there is no need to ‘tame’ or eliminate such elements which have been considered problematic of even erroneous in modern theology” (GFP 526).

How does Wright react to this tour de force? He opens by stating: “I agree that ‘apocalyptic’ is sometimes ‘neutralized’ in contemporary scholarship, but I do not think that I am the one doing it” (GFP 744). Answering Frey’s question “What is wrong with reading in terms of Second Temple Jewish apocalyptic?” (GFP 489-490) with “Nothing at all!,” Wright points out that from his there seems to be  “vital distinction, which is clouded in the early pages of Frey’s response and only gradually comes to the fore” (GFP 744). With regard to the “American school of thought, associated with the late J. L. Martyn,” Wright sees his own assessment over and over confirmed by Frey’s analysis (GFP 744). He writes, for example, quoting various bits from Frey (GFP 744-746): “Just so … Yes: and this is exactly the criticism of one of Martyn’s favorite themes that I have myself stressed … I couldn’t have put it better myself … Precisely … My point precisely … I want to make clear that [Frey] has here simply and firmly endorsed the substance of my critique. … By the end of his essay, as I have already indicated, Frey has made it clear that he takes the same position, though he seems not to realize that he is thus echoing my own arguments.” Thankfully, Wright does not leave the issue with clarifying this but then addresses the “real questions … and this is where there is still real disagreement between Frey and myself” (GFP 746). Wright differentiates between 6 different meanings of “apocalyptic,” suggesting that for Frey the 2nd “is the natural historical usage, and that anything else is a watering down, a ‘neutralization’” (ibid.).

  1. Apocalyptic(M): The view of Martyn et al.
  2. Apocalyptic(End): “end-of-the-world” apocalyptic.
  3. Apocalyptic(Par): Käsemann’s view that connects the end-of-the-world notion specifically with Jesus’s Parousia.
  4. Apocalyptic(Ex): The existential reading by Bultmann that Käsemann was resisting: “For Bultmann, Jesus borrowed the language of Apocalyptic(End), but he did so in order to refer to Apocalyptic(Ex), the challenge that comes to each individual to decide for God and the Gospel” (GFP 474).
  5. Apocalyptic(Pow): “the belief that the language of apocalyptic was used to denote the cosmic struggle in which dangerous and deadly non-human powers waged war against the just purposes of God” – a battle whose height is located by Käsemann at Jesus’s Parousia and shifted to the cross by proponents of Apocalyptic(M) (GFP 747).
  6. Apocalyptic(TheolPol): “ a theo-political reading of ‘apocalyptic’ language, in which a writer uses the  language of ‘end-of-the-world’ events … in order to denote major and devastating socio-political events … and to connote the belief that these events are not random, but are freighted with theological significance” (ibid.)

Wright then explicates the controversy between Frey and himself as being based on him adhering to a version of the 6th variety of apocalyptic, while he thinks Frey belongs to the 2nd and 3rd category (GFP 478). Wright’s actual response against this background looks as follows:

  1. In PFG he reacts mainly against the 1st view – being in complete agreement on this with Frey.
  2. He also argues against the 2nd sense of apocalyptic in PFG 163-175, but “this was a secondary issue in terms of my overall thesis; whereas, if Martyn’s view were correct, my entire argument about the structure of Paul’s thought would be mistaken” (GFP 748).
  3. Frey links Bultmann’s 4th meaning to Wright’s 6th meaning. Against this Wright reacts by claiming that “a very strong case can be made, from scriptural precedent to books from the post-70 period” for his own position and that it thus cannot simply be criticized together with Bultmann’s proposal (GFP 748-749).
  4. By contrast, Wright claims that Frey might himself be prone to “modernizing” Paul (GFP 749): by interpreting the 6th position as being “merely” this-worldly, this argument seems to presuppose itself an “implicit split” between “divine reality and this-worldly reality.” So the real “taming” is happening when people claim that first-century writes were simply “saying that the world was going to end” without being aware of the poetical imagery: “we can neutralize the critical social and political potential which the language originally possessed and can still exercise” (GFP 749n80).
  5. Having focused on the divine within the socio-political dimension, Wright then turns to “another major misunderstanding” (GFP 750): “It seems that Frey, supposing me to be demythologizing ‘apocalyptic,’ supposes also that I am wanting to downplay the widespread early Christian conviction that Jesus the Messiah would return from heaven.” To this he says: “Nothing could be further from the truth.” While Frey says that wisely enough Wright does not “blatantly deny that there will be a ‘royal arrival’ of the Messiah” (501), Wright replies: “Of course not, because it’s obvious, and has always been a vital element in my own theological understanding.” According to Wright, here Frey’s attempt to read the 6th view as a variation of Bultmann’s 4th view “comes to grief, since the sixth view does not entail a ‘realized eschatology’” (ibid.).  A different matter, according to Wright, is the explicit dating of the “eschatological” events “within a generation” in the Synoptic tradition – a thesis he had argued for in particular in Jesus and the Victory of God (GFP 751). This does not mean, however, that with regard to Paul he denies the future elements mentioned by Frey.
  6. Wright explains this “misunderstanding” as follows: “What appears to have happened is that Frey, seeing my polemic against what I regard as an unhistorical use of the idea of ‘apocalyptic’ on the part of Martyn and his followers, and noting also (though it is a totally different point) that I reject Apocalyptic(End), has supposed that my polemic against Martyn is polemic against (rather than for!) first-century historical readings, and has reacted on the assumption that I was offering a kind of blanket demythologization, a dismissal of all sorts of other things that the word sometimes refers to” (GFP 751-752).

Here is not the place to decide whether Wright’s reconstruction of Frey’s interaction with his ideas in PFG is correct. What is interesting indeed is that Wright points out a case where Frey seems to have identified an attempt of neutralizing apocalyptic aspects while this was not intended by Wright. He adduces a passage in PFG 706 on 1 Thess 3:13 and Phil 2:9-11, in which he says that for Paul “this eschatological vision … has already become a reality in Jesus the messiah.” Frey comments on this (GFP 501): “This is simply not correct. Neither the universal adoration of Jesus according to Phil 2:9-11 nor his advent with the heavenly host according to 1 Thess 3:13 are already fulfilled for Paul, neither in Jesus nor in the church. Wright’s explanation follows the constraints of his construction but does violence to the texts if they do not fit his presupposed worldview.” In this specific case, one might raise the question of whether Frey’s “(re-)construction” of Wright’s views has also put certain constraints on his reading of PFG – for as Wright rightly points out (GFP 752): “I was there summing up my Christological argument that for Paul the identity of Jesus is bound up with this eschatological expectation of Israel’s returning God. In the same paragraph I made it clear that ‘Paul still looked forward’ to the still-future event of Jesus’s own return. My basic point there was about Christology, not eschatology.” Thus, it seems justifiable to conclude that Wright’s Paul might indeed be more apocalyptic than Frey thinks (i.e., more “apocalyptic” in the sense of Frey’s own usage).

Still, disagreeing together against Martyn and agreeing (after all) on future eschatology does not yet imply that the two scholars agree on how their “apocalyptic Paul” looks like. To be fair: Wright does not claim so, admitting that there are indeed differences in their conceptions. In particular, Wright insists that his “theo-political” emphasis is completely in line with the historical evidence. Where he might be underestimating the discrepancies between these two “apocalyptic Pauls” is that they take their character not simply from what is affirmed and what is rejected by their creators. It is not the case that if one only removed the theo-political aspect from Wright’s reconstruction one would automatically have Frey’s conception as a result. Rather, what gives these Pauls their specific contours is also what is emphasized and how (i.e., most importantly but not only, on what basis) certain elements are affirmed or rejected. Even where two exegetes confirm the same aspect to be true in Paul, one of them might do so only as a concession while the other might delight in it.

Thus, eventually, it is up to the readers to make up their own mind on Paul and apocalyptic by closely reading this specific “conversation” (see GFP 6). If this episode demonstrates anything, then that in Pauline studies a close reading is needed – of Paul’s letters and of those involved in their interpretation. This is, in the end, what GFP is meant for – not to offer a final verdict on Wright’s achievement, but to create a basis for a continuing conversation (cf. PFG 21) – a task to which, to return to the beginning of this blog post series, Zurich has sought to contribute.

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Christoph Heilig is working on an SNF-Project on Narrative-Substructures in the Letters of Paul with Prof. Jörg Frey. He is the author of Hidden Criticism? Methodology and Plausibility of the Search for a Counter-Imperial Subtext in Paul, WUNT II 392 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2015) and Paul’s Triumph: Reassessing 2 Corinthians 2:14 in Its Literary and Historical Context, BTS 27 (Leuven: Peeters, 2016).

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