Resurrecting Interpretation

Technology, Hermeneutics, and the Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus

Simon Perry

• Publisher: Pickwick Publications
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN:
  9781610976114
  9781498261302
• eBook ISBN:
  9781630875930
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Criticism & Interpretation

Hermeneutics is the work of Hermes, the Greek demigod, a messenger from the gods and from the dead. Simon Perry sets out to explore the contemporary face of Hermes through a reading of Jesus' parable of the rich man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19-31). This parable has one distinguishing feature that marks it out from other ancient stories following the same basic storyline: that a visitor from the dead is not granted leave to return with a message to the land of the living. In order for Scripture to be heard, Hermes is not necessary. Where does this leave the role of hermeneutics? Perry looks to philosophers, ethicists, and theologians for an answer.

1

Demythologizing the Text

Early Influences on Bultmann’s Thought

The three chapters in the first part of this thesis explore the extensive reach of the phenomenon identified by Heidegger as technologism, considering whether and to what extent its influence may be detected in various models of interpretive theory. This chapter focuses upon the biblical scholar Rudolf Bultmann (1884–1976), who consciously and carefully fostered a hermeneutical theory to shape his biblical interpretation. What follows cannot amount to a thoroughgoing critique of Bultmann’s theological achievements, a task that is both beyond the scope of this thesis and one that has been thoroughly conducted by a host of incisive theological minds from a variety of perspectives.1 The limited aim of this chapter is rather to locate Bultmann’s interpretive theory, and some established critiques of his hermeneutics, in relation to the concerns of Heidegger as outlined in the introduction.

Structurally this chapter is coupled with chapter 7, which explores Barth’s exposition of the Sabbath command and its relation to biblical interpretation. Though Bultmann and Barth shared many theological convictions, and indeed, a longstanding friendship, their approaches to hermeneutics were significantly different, a difference that clarifies the concerns of each thinker and one that is highlighted by chapters 1 and 7 taken together. (Chapter 7 will relate existential reading to the parable of the rich man and Lazarus [Luke 16:19–31], but this chapter will simply allude to the parable to highlight the shortcomings of Bultmann’s notion of history). One of the major differences between Barth and Bultmann was their association with philosophy. Bultmann sought to embrace philosophy as an aid to theological understanding, whereas Barth saw it relativized by the revelation of Christ. In this light, Barth criticised Bultmann for being too attached to Heidegger.2

Given the collaboration between Heidegger and Bultmann, Marburg companions from 1923–28, it is hardly surprising that the former’s influence upon the latter is often perceived as the chink in Bultmann’s armor. But the mutual influence between the two thinkers was not a one-way street,3 nor was Heidegger the only or even the major influence upon Bultmann’s thought. Nineteenth century Lutheranism had a tremendous effect on his theological concerns, clearly leading Barth to note—albeit in a devastating critique of Bultmann’s theology—that those who throw stones at Bultmann are likely to hit Luther.4 It should also be noted that Barth and Bultmann both sought to respond to Nineteenth century Liberal Protestantism, and it is in this context that Dialectical Theology also made its mark upon Bultmann. The list could go on to include other figures and movements including the History of Religions School and the Marburg Neo-Kantians.5 Treatments of these influences are offered by a variety of Bultmann commentators,6 and demonstrate that Heidegger by no means set the agenda for Bultmann’s concerns or for the program of demythologization.7 In sum, Bultmann’s demythologizing program is not properly understood as a theological version of Heidegger’s existentialism.

Bultmann’s importance as a biblical interpreter hardly needs stating, but is of particular interest for this thesis because of the several concerns he consistently pursued throughout his career. He was acutely aware of the dangers designated by technologism, and remained committed to the belief that the Jesus of the Gospels should not be innocuously restricted to the world of the text. Biblical interpretation for Bultmann is inescapably self-involving, engaging the subjective world of the reader with the stark challenge of otherness. The twentieth century reader, with a scientific worldview was automatically thought to be dislocated from the world in which the New Testament was forged, a world informed by and dependent upon what today is called mythology. Bultmann rejected the liberal notion that the mythological elements of the New Testament could be discarded, as he also rejected the notion that they could be reduced to the attempt to articulate human moral ideals and filtered down into some form of a social Gospel. Bultmann rather insisted upon taking seriously the myths, seeking to hear their essential challenge for the modern reader and to do so by interpreting them. In the light of subsequent research Bultmann’s particular interpretation of perceived myths may appear dated, but as demonstrated below, if his core interpretations have been largely superseded, essential elements of his interpretive methodology remain central to the concerns of contemporary mainstream biblical hermeneutics.

Objectification

If Bultmann’s program of “demythologization” is to be fully appreciated, then clearly in the first instance his concept of “myth” must be unpacked. Across the span of his prolific writings, the constitution of myth takes different forms and appears to serve different purposes.8 Before exploring the role of myth in Bultmann’s thought, however, a prior question must also be addressed, namely the question of why myths present a problem in the first place. This was a major source of contention in the dialogue with Barth. After Barth’s famously provocative lecture, “Rudolf Bultmann, Ein Versuch ihn zu verstehen,” the heated correspondence that ensued led to a conclusion that helps to clarify the reason for Bultmann’s overriding concerns about mythology: “It was materially impressive to me,” writes Barth, “. . . that for you the really irksome thing about ‘mythological thinking’ turns out to be its ‘objectifying.’”9

Bultmann’s theological rejection of “objectification” was a constituent element of his own thought from the earliest stage, and as Roger Johnson points out, is most likely attributable to Marburg Neo-Kantianism in general and the influence of his teacher, Wilhelm Herrman in particular.10 The term is used almost exclusively by Bultmann in a pejorative sense,11 since by it he does not mean to criticize the mind’s orientation to its object. Far from it, rather, he is fiercely opposed to the mind’s own construction of objects, objects that do not in fact exist. Such construction serves to achieve the clarity of structured thought. While this activity is valid in a provisional sense for certain disciplines, it is wholly inappropriate for a mode of thought which seeks to engage the wholly other.12 The contrast with Cartesian idealism is obvious. For Bultmann, the thinking subject does not encounter a world of detached objects awaiting investigation, because—and this parallels Heidegger’s early work—the subject is always already interconnected with the objects it encounters. The illusory activity of creating objects that serve to secure one’s position in the world is what Bultmann signifies with the term “objectifying.” The reasons for the repulsion he adopts towards objectifying thought in relation to theology are obvious: A God construed as Wholly Other cannot at the same time be encountered in objectifying thought, because for Bultmann the movement of such an enterprise is always in one direction. Without exception, the God of objectification is nothing other than an idol forged by human hands.

Bultmann counters the objectified God of myth, with an extensive, if idiosyncratic, use of eschatology. Eschatology certainly does not refer to a planned sequence of chronological events in which God himself is destined to bring an end to human history. Eschatology, in line with the entire pattern of Bultmann’s theological program, is de-historicized;13 that is, it becomes a decisive event in the life of the subject. This version of eschatology14 is set up deliberately over against the eschatological machinations of objectification. Johnson makes the point with succinct perception:

When I think in an objectifying way, I give a certain permanence to the objects of my thought, whether they are ideas or things, physical or spiritual. But eschatology apprehends God without any taint of permanence. God’s word happens in a moment, an eschatological moment, which cannot be fitted into chronological time.15

In Bultmann’s 1926 port...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Chapter 1: Demythologizing the Text
• Chapter 2: Democratizing the Text
• Chapter 3: Defacing the Text
• Chapter 4: Resurrection as the Chiasmus of History and Biblical Interpretation
• Chapter 5: Christological Reading as Humility
• Chapter 6: Somatological Reading as Charis
• Chapter 7: Eschatological Reading as Sabbath Celebration
• Conclusion: Resurrection as the Pulse of Scripture
• Bibliography