I’ve been trying to take advantage of the winter break between classes (with varying degrees of success) to make a dent in the ever-growing “must-read” reading list. I did manage to get through Francis Watson’s Paul and the Hermeneutics of Faith the other day. (For those who aren’t familiar with the book, a quick summary is that Watson is arguing that Paul interprets the Old Testament in light of his “discovery of the tension-laden dynamics of the scriptural narrative itself” and that this “dissonance is both uncovered by the gospel and resolved by it, since its theological function is to testify to the gospel” [24].)
Anyway, I thought I’d share a couple of more general, summary quotes from Watson’s book:
…the Pauline reading of scripture is a reading in black and white. It finds in scripture only darkness and light, and the darkness is human and the light is divine. The boundary between the two is sharply defined. In scripture, God divides the light from the darkness, and – taking no interest in the various shades of grey or of other colours that appear as day turns to night or night to day – God pronounces this arrangement to be good. Scripture, Paul might say, is to be read in black and white because scripture just is black and white. Admirers of the various shades of grey or of other colours will not feel at home in these texts. (168)
For Paul, the old and the new are characterized by two different accounts of divine agency. Fundamental to the old is the divine act of inscription. What is inscribed, however, is prescription: a series (or two series) of demands, formulated either positively or negatively. The addressee of these demands is directed towards his or her future conduct, which must either conform to them or transgress them. No third option is available….The new is characterized by a quite different divine action: the raising of Jesus from the dead and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. Human well-being (“life”, or “righteousness”) is brought about by a divine fiat no less unilateral than the one that originally called forth light out of darkness: “it is the God who said, Let light shine out of darkness, who has shone in our hearts with the light of the knowledge of God’s glory in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Cor.4.6)….In place of prescription there is creation: not the outline of a required though hypothetical human praxis, but the realization of light and life as the true goal of human existence. The divine writing issues a series of demands, whereas the gospel announces the dawning of the saving action of God. That is the fundamental contrast between the old and the new. (312-3)
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5 responses to “A Couple of Quotes on Paul’s Interpretive Method from Francis Watson”
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…prescription …creation.
……hypothetical human praxis…the realization of light and life as the true goal of human existence.
… series of demands… dawning of the saving action of God.
…old ….new.
What is missing, or charitably merely implied, is the Fleshy, warm, earthy, sweatly Incarnation of Our Lord.
THE Light of men that the darkness could not overcome.
That darkness was not the written Law. It is sin.
What else is missing is that sweatly fleshly YOU. In YOUR Baptism. YOU become the fulfillment of prophecy literally by becoming the Will of God in YOUR beating heart. You Literally put on this incarnate Christ.
Whatever can be said about him and his Light can be said completely about you in your person.
The Will of God should not be set in opposition to itself in it´s various manifestations.
The law written on stone is merely one manifestation. Law-as-conscience-in-old-adam is yet another. Christ Incarnate and in you the full version. Same thing. Different manifestations.
In the new creation it is not that dark codified law meets new creation.
it is that Law meets its prophecied and longed for Fulfillment.
In Christ.
Peace.
please delete my previous comment. thank you! or leave it. The author actually seems to say pretty much what I was thinking he was missing.
Lenn:
Awesome job! I, too, have been reading Watson this break…hmmm…i wonder where we got the same idea? 😉
Anyway, here is my favorite quote from an article entitled: "Christ, Law and Freedom: A Study in Theological Hermeneutics", in the book God and Freedom: Essays in Historical and Systematic Theology
ed. by Colin Gunton
"There do not appear to be any necessarylimits to the canonical process in which the Law of moses is supplanted by additional books; an increasing number of supplementary books need not pose a threat to the centrality of the Law. Thus, distinctively Christian books (including Gospels and letters) could have been added as a fourth element to the existing threefold canon comprising law, prophets and writing, in such a way that the primacy of the law was maintained. had Paul's opponents' account of Christian identity been accepted, a canonical structuring of this kind would have been a logical consequence
"On the other hand, Paul's assumption of the ultimate and universal significance of Jesus Christ has as its logical consequence a rejection of the foundational status of the law of Moses and its replacement by Jesus Christ as the centre of the Christian canon. Thus the 'New Testament' is not a fourth element added to the threefold Jewish canon founded on the Torah but a new foundation that entails a radical restructuring of the Jewish canon so that it becomes a new, unheard-of entity, the Christian 'Old Testament'. this canonical restructuring is foundational for Christian identity; it is difficult to imagine how the decision could be reversed, so that the Gospels were reduced in status to secondary elaborations of the Torah, because it is difficult to imagine how such a revision could possibly be regarded with the Christian community as adequate to the ultimacy and universality of the truth-claim it hears with the Gospels. Paul's decision participates in a canonical process whose effects have proved to be enduring"
pg. 99-100
in conjunction to this, I'd recommend not only reading Watson, but if you can, getting a hold of Jono Linebaugh's article in TSM's journal: "Paul’s (Re)Reading of Israel’s Scripture (2 Corinthians 3:6b-14)". Linebaugh does a great job putting Watson in understandable, clear, and readable terms, while also offering a lot of original, scholarly, brilliant thought.
Lauren:
Great quote! And that article by Jono Linebaugh you mentioned is what initially directed me to Watson (well, that and the promptings of that certain other source we share in common…)–yes, definitely a good read.
beautiful!