Wiles is far from insensitive to this priority of krisis over Kritik; but how can his model of doctrinal criticism allow it its proper weight?
By Kritik Williams is indicating not just that historical criticism which questioned the integrity and historical objectivity of the New Testament texts as texts, but also Tendenzkritik - that criticism, originating with FC Baur and the Tubingen School, which sought to uncover the interests at play in the text. In other words, the text is a site of, or a move in, a power struggle, and we can reconstruct the struggle, and then interpret the text in the light of the struggle.
So, Williams is saying to Wiles - 'sure, we ought to enquire as to whose interests are being served in this text, and do some pretty serious unmasking. But even thought you claim you are really interested in how people encounter Christ, can you really show that you put this as a priority?' It's a good question, but one that Williams himself doesn't necessarily evade. In his own work, he does take a great deal of time talking about the moment when people encounter Jesus and how that breaks open into new things, new possibilities; but can he really admit so much Tendenzkritik in and still hope to rescue an inner kurnel of pure Jesus from the mess? By accepting that so much of the Bible is impure and obscure, how can he not have knocked away the supporting testimony to Jesus Christ in its credibility?
7 comments:
By accepting that so much of the Bible is impure and obscure ...
... as opposed to, say, something written on gold tablets, with an authoritative interpreter provided? Or something dictated directly from heaven, and devoid of myth?
Impurity as such might be a bad thing, if there were a coherent idea of the pure and if we really would be more inclined to trust such a pure thing. But what is this idea of purity?
No, it's a question of degree. I was attracted to the word 'impure' because the impurity in this sense is held to mean 'that it is corrupted by the interests of certain power groups who use religious language for their own purposes'. Higher Criticism of the Bible has preceded for two centuries on the basis of a need to purify it and get to its essential, pure core: perhaps the metaphor preceeds me.
Well I think metaphors have a way of getting beyond the intentions of those who use them: come to think of it, this point is a propos.
Higher Criticism of the Bible has preceded for two centuries on the basis of a need to purify it and get to its essential, pure core ...
Indeed, but I guess I am trying to suggest the move of accepting at least some of the description of the text as variously shot through with "imperfections" and agendas, but rejecting the interpretation that often follows, namely the idea that one must privilege the prejudices of the here-and-now over the witness of the apostolic generation. Discarding the husk but keeping the kernel of the criticism, as it were.
This is no original proposal; knowing your tendency to consider (e.g.) inerrantism as not so much right or wrong but a mistaken distraction, I was guessing you might be in some sympathy. But to return to the metaphor: there is nothing straightforward about purity, and this sort of talk does prompt me to ask what kind of defilement it is that people think they are afraid of in this setting, and to enquire into the nature and motivation of their own programme to maintain ritual cleanliness.
Well, like so much rationalism, it proceeds by an all or nothing - the same assumption that its direct opposite assumes. So, the fundamentalist and the liberal agree that an 'impure' scripture cannot be inspired in the orthodox sense of inspiration. It is just that they disagree as to whether it is 'impure' or not.
Of course, I take neither position!
So what's your problem with Williams in this connection?
Williams is of course a complex case. Wiles (old-school liberal) would say 'scrape away the apostolic dross and you get to the pure core of Jesus stuff, with which we ought to deal.' Williams says, no, wait a minute, that stuff is like the ripples generated by a stone thrown into a pond: and the ripples can tell us a lot about the stone. But between themselves the ripples are fragmentary and inchoate.
It is a problem of vantage point: if he has conceded (and he needn't have) that the witnesses to Jesus are incoherent and discordant how can he be confident of the connection to the original source at all? What gives him the ability to see the whole of the picture, to be able to observe and trace the connections between the splash and the ripples?
Williams then makes a bit of shift: he is not so much interested in what the texts say, as what it is that they DO... So, the apostolic letters are evidence of what HAPPENS when Jesus is encountered, and it is by nature piecemeal and fragmentary and stumbling.
I think he has conceded far too much: his apparent agnosticism lapses readily into sceptisism about the NT.
I have always appreciated sermons and short pieces I've seen from Williams, and likewise extracts from him quoted on this blog. But I've never read anything by him at book length --- or anything near to it --- so it's useful to get your perspective. I guess it's also the case that I've read him more often on language and doctrine, where to this interested outsider's viewpoint he seems eminently sensible and illuminating, than on Biblical exposition.
(I also read a 1998 piece by him on Spong, only very recently, which was excellent. To my mind Spong is easy to critique badly, and difficult to critique well.)
if he has conceded (and he needn't have) that the witnesses to Jesus are incoherent and discordant how can he be confident of the connection to the original source at all?
You've characterised your quarrel with RW as a disagreement about degree --- about how much need or should be conceded --- but I do sense in this wording something more absolute: a version of the what-is-impure-cannot-bear-useful-witness reaction that you're otherwise disclaiming. If I had to give a generic answer to your question What gives him the ability to see the whole of the picture, it would be that this is the kind of thing one both learns and demonstrates by doing. I'm probably safe in saying that I'd be more comfortable than you with having discordance and imperfection ascribed to Scripture ... but this doesn't mean that I won't agree with you after seeing what Williams actually does.
So if I were to read a single thing by RW at book or long-essay length, what would you recommend?
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