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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 09 September 2014
The debate about salvation history brings to the surface a variety of issues, problems, and proposals that can be designated with some justice postmodern. In an effort to explore these contested issues, I offer a composite portrait of the meaning and uses of the concept of salvation history, drawing attention to its importance for recent Roman Catholic theology. I then review the various kinds of criticism leveled against salvation history models in an attempt to show that Peter Hodgson's contention is warranted: that is, the concept salvation history is problematic both as a category for interpreting the scriptural witness and as a pivotal category for fundamental and systematic theology. Thus, postmodernity, understood in broad terms, should mean the end of salvation history. The final section will explore how the legitimate concerns that generated interest in salvation history models can be recast in light of these broader postmodern approaches.
1 Hodgson, Peter, God in History: Shapes of Freedom (Nashville, TN: Abingdon, 1989), 11–50.Google Scholar
2 The term “postmodern” has been used to describe aspects of neo-orthodox, liberationist, post-structuralist, and revisionist theologies. These theologies have been designated postmodern because (1) they provide a critical evaluation of the many-sided legacy of modernity and (2) they construct various proposals for responding to the crises resulting from modernity; e.g., some advance the importance of the primary language of faith, intertextuality, praxis, social contexts, critical theories, marginalized voices, minority traditions and communities. Different postmodern theological assessments of modernity are examined in my forthcoming essay, “The Rhetoric of Crisis in Postmodern Theologies.” In the current essay I draw from various kinds of so-called postmodern theology, without trying to stay within one paradigm, in order to encourage a cross-fertilization of different concerns and proposals.
3 The modern use of salvation history as a model for interpreting the scriptures has three historical contexts: (1) a pietist response to an arid and stagnant dogmatism of Protestant Theology in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; (2) the nineteenth-century Erlangen theologian, J. C. K, Hofmann; and (3) the rise of twentieth-century kerygmatic theology and the development of tradition-criticism. For this history and related bibliography, see von Reventlow, Henning Graf, Problems of Old Testament Theology (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985), 87–110Google Scholar, and Problems of Biblical Theology in the Twentieth Century (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1986), 10–37.Google Scholar Also see Weth, G., Die Heilsgeschichte, vol. IV/2, Forschungen zur Geschichte und Lehre des Protestantismus (Munich, 1931)Google Scholar, and Frei, Hans, The Eclipse of Biblical Narrative (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1974), 173–82.Google Scholar
4 The salvation history motif can be found occasionally in official documents from the Second Vatican Council, Pope John Paul II, and the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. In addition to those we will examine, there have been many Catholic theologians who have written about the Bible and revelation in terms of salvation history since the 1960s. See, for example, Mysterium Salutis: Grundriss heilsgeschichtlicher Dogmatik, ed. Feiner, Johannes and Löhrer, Magnus, 5 vols. (Einsiedeln: Benziger, 1965–1976)Google Scholar, esp. the Introduction and Adolf Darlap's contribution, xxiii-xliii, 3-158; Schillebeeckx, Edward, “Salvation History as the Basis of Theology: Theologia or Oikonomia?” in Revelation and Theology, Vol. 2 (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1968), 79–105;Google Scholar and Kasper, Walter, “Grunlinien einer Theologie der Geschichte” (1964) in Glaube in Wandel der Geschichte (Mainz: Matthias-Grünewald-Verlag, 1973), 63–102.Google Scholar On Bernard Lonergan, see Hefling, Charles C. Jr., “On Understanding Salvation History” in McEvenue, S. E. and Meyer, B. F., eds., Lonergan's Hermeneutics: Its Development and Application (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1989), 221–99.Google Scholar For the role of salvation history in Catholic moral theology, see Heilsgeschichte und ethische Normen, “Quaestiones Disputatae,” ed. Rotter, Hans (Freiburg: Herder, 1984).Google Scholar
5 Karl Barth used salvation history as a model for interpreting the Bible and in turn defined the task of dogmatic theology relative to this model. See Barth, Karl, Romans (London: Oxford University Press, 1968), 57Google Scholar and passim, and Church Dogmatics (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1956–1969), Vol. I/2, 12–13; Vol. II/1, 506–22; Vol. III/1, 42–94, esp. 60; and Vol. IV/4, 24–26.Google Scholar
6 The use of the term salvation history among biblical scholars reached its zenith in the 1950s and 1960s with the works of Gerhard von Rad, G. Ernest Wright, Oscar Cullmann, and Rudolf Bultmann, among others. Besides these Protestant biblical scholars there were numerous Catholics who interpreted biblical narratives in terms of a salvation history model, e.g., Herbert Haag, Bruce Vawter, John L. McKenzie, R. A. F. MacKenzie, and more recently Raymond E. Brown and Joseph Fitzmyer. For Catholic examples, see Salm, C. Luke, ed., Studies in Salvation History (Engelwood, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1964).Google Scholar
7 See Reventlow, , Problems of Biblical Theology, 14–37.Google Scholar During the middle third of this century the use and theological function of typology in the New Testament received considerable attention, especially among Catholics, but since the 1960s a reconsideration of inner-biblical exegesis in terms of Jewish and Graeco-Roman hermeneutical principles and rhetorical devices has been under way. As Reventlow acknowledges, “Qumran and other contemporary Jewish interpretations have made the context of the New Testament method clearer: typology is just one, rather rare, way in which the Old Testament is used in the New” (20). This is an important point not only for understanding the New Testament, but also for assessing the contributions of the theologians from this period, and for considering the diverse uses of scripture in theology today.
8 Henri de Lubac's publications during the 1950s and 1960s on the history of early Christian and medieval exegesis and Jean Daniélou's work appearing in 1948 and 1950 accentuated the importance of typology and spiritual exegesis. These emphases are also found in the theologies of Joseph Ratzinger and Hans Urs von Balthasar.
9 See the works cited by McGinn, Bernard, The Calabrian Abbot: Joachim of Fiore in the History of Western Thought (New York: Macmillan, 1985), 209–13Google Scholar, esp. nn. 41–42.
10 Rahner, Karl, “History of the World and Salvation-History” (1961), Theological Investigations (New York: Seabury, 1979), 97–114Google Scholar, and “Observations on the Concept of Revelation” in Rahner, Karl and Ratzinger, Joseph, eds., Revelation and Tradition, “Quaestiones Disputatae” 17 (New York: Herder and Herder, 1966), 9–25.Google Scholar Note Phan's, Peter discussion of Rahner, and Cullmann, on salvation history in Eternity in Time: A Study of Karl Rahner's Eschatology (Selinsgrove, PA: Susquehanna University Press, 1988), 33–34.Google Scholar Karl Rahner and Adolf Darlap give considerable attention to examining the relationship between salvation history and world history, whereas some Catholic theologians prefer to remain within a salvation history frame of reference. See Reventlow, , Problems of Old Testament Theology, 87, 90, 96–99.Google Scholar
11 Ratzinger, Joseph, Principles of Catholic Theology, trans. McCarthy, M. F. (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1982), 153–90;Google Scholar“Revelation and Tradition” in Ratzinger, and Rahner, , Revelation and Tradition, 26–68;Google Scholar and Eschatology: Death and Eternal Life (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1988).Google Scholar On the importance of spiritual exegesis, see Ratzinger, Joseph, “Foundations and Approaches of Biblical Exegesis,” Origins 17 (1988): 584–602, esp. 600–01.Google Scholar
12 von Balthasar, Hans Urs, Theology of History (New York: Sheed & Ward, 1963);Google ScholarTheological Anthropology (New York: Sheed & Ward, 1967);Google Scholar and Love Alone: The Way of Revelation (London: Burns & Oates, 1968).Google Scholar
13 See von Balthasar, Hans Urs, The Moment of Christian Witness (New York: Newman, 1968).Google Scholar Ratzinger and Balthasar have both criticized Rahner's transcendental approach to theology for overemphasizing the freedom of the human person. By contrast they accentuate the freedom of God's activity in salvation history and the obedience to God's Word as mediated through salvation history in the scriptures and as interpreted by the church's teaching office. Ratzinger explicitly argues and Balthasar suggests that liberation and political theologies are the further extrapolation of this anthropological interpretation of history—the vertical axis of time and eternity is jettisoned or deviated from in favor of a horizontal and immanentized transcendence.
14 The Glory of the Lord, 1:29.Google Scholar Louis Dupré's concern about Balthasar's interpretation of the Old and the New Testament should be considered in relation to Balthasar's use of the salvation-history rubric. See Dupré, Louis, “Hans Urs von Balthasar's Theology of Aesthetic Form,” Theological Studies 49 (1988): 299–318, esp. 318.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
15 Reventlow, , Problems of Old Testament Theology, 96.Google Scholar The issue of salvation history seems passé for many in biblical studies and is no longer in vogue among Protestant systematic theologians—even those influenced by Barth. But it has remained viable for a number of Roman Catholic theologians and in official documents, as well as among some Evangelical Christians in the United States context. This may be attributed in part to the lag time between work being generated by biblical scholars and its reception among systematic theologians.
16 My formulation of these issues in influenced by Paul Ricoeur's treatment of a threefold mimesis and the relationship between fiction and history. See Time and Narrative 3 vols. (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1984, 1985, 1988), 1:52–87, 3:180–92.Google Scholar Franz Hesse poses the question this way: “To what exactly is the predicate “Heilsgeschichte” attributed? There are three choices: (1) the history of Israel, as it happens in reality according to our scientific knowledge, (2) each history of the Old Testament people of God as it is set forth according to the faith witness of the biblical narrators above the stage [of history], (3) a salvation history, which somehow takes place ‘in, with, and under’ the real history of God at work” (Abschied von der Heilsgeschichte, Theologische Studien 108 [Zurich: Theologischer Verlag, 1971], 37).Google Scholar
17 Abschied, 8, 14-15.
18 In addition to Hesse's, Abschied, see his earlier statements, “Die Erforschung der Geschichte Israels als theologische Aufgabe,” Kerygma und Dogma 4 (1958): 1–20Google Scholar, and “Kerygma oder geschichtliche Wirklichkeit? Kritische Fragen,” Zeitschrift für Theology und Kirche 57 (1960): 17–26.Google Scholar
19 Reventlow remarks that “in van Rad [as in G. E. Wright], the historical event itself, the ‘facts’, a term which he often uses, has absolute priority for Israel,… though this becomes significant in the form of tradition, i.e., as the message of the event: the subject of a Theology of the Old Testament is, ‘the living word of Yahweh as it came down to Israel in the message of his mighty acts from time to time’ “ (Problems in Old Testament Theology, 74).
20 See Barr, James, Old and New in Interpretation (London: SCM, 1966), 67–69.Google Scholar
21 The historicity of the ancestral narratives has been rejected by many. Some since the mid-1970s have pressed the fictitious character of the “historical books.” See Hayes, J. H. and Miller, J. M., Israelite and fudean History (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1977).Google Scholar This has led a few to attempt to develop a history of Israel independently of the biblical traditions, utilizing archaeological sources. See Thomas L. Thompson, “Historiography, Israelite,” Anchor Bible Dictionary (forthcoming); “Text, Context, and Referent in Israelite Historiography,” SBL Lecture, November 1989 (forthcoming); and The Origin Tradition of Ancient Israel, Vol. 1, JSOT 55 (Sheffield: Almonds, 1987).Google Scholar Also see Lemche, N. P., Early Israel (Leiden: Brill, 1985)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Finkelstein, Israel, The Archaeology of the Israelite Settlement (Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 1988).Google Scholar I am indebted to Thomas Thompson for these references. Questions pertaining to the life of Jesus and emergent Christianity raise similar and distinctive issues which are not treated in this paper.
22 Thompson states: “The biblical tradition brings together three distinct tendencies which should not be confused with historiography: (a) an understanding of Israel's deity as providential and as determining historical events: (b) a West Semitic prophetic tradition which judges the morality of historical events and is critical of the action of king and state; and (c) the theological and moralizing Tendenz of the exilic and post-exilic collectors of traditional narrative who applied the prophetic judgments to the events of the tradition” (“Historiography,” 22).
23 This criticism has been made by many biblical scholars, but also see Ricoeur, Paul, “Toward a Hermeneutic of the Idea of Revelation” in Mudge, L. S., ed., Essays on Biblical Interpretation (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1980), 73–118, esp. 80–81.Google Scholar
24 On narrative, type scenes, and the structure of repetition, see Alter, Robert, The Art of Biblical Narrative (New York: Basic, 1981)Google Scholar, and Sternberg, Meir, The Poetics of Biblical Narrative (Bloomington: Indiana University, 1985).Google Scholar Recalling and reconfiguring narratives can be motivated by concerns with continuing a tradition, drawing out further implications of a narrative tradition, or possibly subverting earlier explicit or implicit claims within the received tradition.
25 Von Rad contrasts the modern historical critical view of history with the view of history held by Israel. He acknowledges that there are various views of salvation history in the different sources of the Old Testament and that the “reinterpretation of an older text by a later is often a violent one” (Old Testament Theology, 2:413Google Scholar). So, for example, there are different traditions of election and the “continual actualization of the data of the saving history” (414) takes place throughout the Old Testament. There are “constant breaks in tradition, new beginnings, which can be found in this process” (“Antwort auf Conzelmanns Fragen,” Evangelische Theologie 24 [1964]: 388–94, 390).Google Scholar But note well: “The great historical works from the succession Document and the Deuteronomic histories down to Chronicles certainly exhibit an astounding variety both in possible methods of presentation and in basic aims: but the fundamental conception of history as a continuum of events determined by Jahweh's promise, which flows forward to the fulfillment intended by him, is constant” (Old Testament Theology, 2:426–27Google Scholar). See Reventlov, , Problems of Old Testament Theology, 101.Google Scholar
26 According to Fishbane, “the movement from traditum to aggadic traditio involves both a shift to a new historical setting, such that a given traditum is aggadically revised by new teachers in new life settings, and a shift to a new literary setting, such that an aggadic traditio is embodied in new literary milieux, and, commonly, in new literary modes as well” (Biblical Interpretation in Ancient Israel [Oxford: Clarendon, 1985], 408, 435–40;Google Scholar also see his Garments of Torah [Bloomington: Indiana University, 1989], 18.Google Scholar Cf. von Rad, , Old Testament Theology, 2:438.Google Scholar
27 For similar concerns, see Thompson's, Thomas work (n. 21 above) and Sanders, James A.' work on canon and the traditioning process, From Sacred Story to Sacred Text (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1987).Google Scholar
28 See Hesse, , Abschied, 49–67.Google Scholar
29 Similar instances may also be found in the Targums and Midrash, as well as in New Testament and early Christian literature.
30 See the Ulrich Wilckens-Günther Klein debate about Romans 4. For Wilckens Romans 4 provided the paradigmatic example of salvation history and the continuity of God's salvific intention. Günther Klein argued that salvation history was an inappropriate heremeneutical principle to illuminate Paul's use of the Abraham episode in Romans and that in fact this text demonstrates the real problem of discontinuity for Paul, early Christianity, and the salvation history model. See Klein, Günther, “Römer 4 und die Idee der Heilsgeschichte,” Evangelische Theologie 23 (1963): 424–47;CrossRefGoogle Scholar“Exegetische Probleme in Römer 3, 21-4, 25,” Evangelische Theologie 24 (1964): 676–83;Google Scholar and “Heil und Geschichte nach Römer 4,” New Testament Studies 13 (1966–1967): 43–47;CrossRefGoogle ScholarWilckens, Ulrich, “zu Römer, 4, 21-4, 25,” Evangelische Theologie 24 (1964): 586–610;Google Scholar“Die Rechtfertigung Abrahams nach Römer 5” in Rendtorff, R. and Koch, K., eds., Studien zur Theologie der alttes-tamentlichen Ueberliferungen (Neukirchener, 1961).Google Scholar
31 See Pawlikowski, John T., Christ in the Light of Christian-Jewish Dialogue (New York: Paulist, 1982).Google Scholar
32 Achtemeier, Paul, The Quest for Unity in the New Testament Church: A Study in Paul and Acts (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1987)Google Scholar, and Brown, Raymond E., The Churches the Apostles Left Behind (New York: Paulist, 1984).Google Scholar
33 Reventlow provides a helpful discussion of the contributions of many figures on this problem of discontinuity (“the single chain of disasters with very few bright moments”) and he acknowledges the qualifications by von Rad and Cullmann in response; but in the end he concludes that “the dialectic of a history of salvation and disaster is not expressed clearly enough in von Rad and Cullmann…” (Problems of Old Testament Theology, 103-10).
34 John Scotus Eriugena developed a “more than” (plus quam) construction in order to move beyond affirmative and negative statements about God. See Macquarrie, John, In Search of Deity: An Essay in Dialectical Theism (New York: Crossroad, 1985), 89.Google Scholar
35 E.g., Gilkey, Langdon, “Cosmology, Ontology, and the Travail of Biblical Language,” The Journal of Religion 41 (1961): 194–205;CrossRefGoogle ScholarHodgson, Peter, God in History: Shapes of Freedom; Gordon Kaufmann, God the Problem (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1972)Google Scholar, and Theology for a Nuclear Age (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1985);Google ScholarWiles, Maurice, God's Action in the World (London: SCM, 1986);Google ScholarMcFague, Sally, Models of God (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1987);Google Scholar and Bracken, Joseph A., The Triune Symbol: Persons, Process, and Community (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1985).Google Scholar
36 Kasper, Walter contrasts incarnational and eschatological theologies of history in “Grundlinien einer Theologie der Geschichte,” Glaube im Wandel der Geschichte, 63–102.Google Scholar
37 E.g., Jürgen Moltmann, Wolfhart Pannenberg, Johann Baptist Metz, and Edward Schillebeeckx. Of seminal importance for these theologians was Bloch, Ernst, The Principle of Hope (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1986).Google Scholar
38 See Farley, Edward, Ecclesial Reflection: An Anatomy of Theological Method (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1982), 27–34, 155–57Google Scholar, and Fiorenza, Elisabeth Schüssler, In Memory of Her: A Feminist Reconstruction of Christian Origins (New York: Crossroad, 1983)Google Scholar, and Bread Not Stone: The Challenge of Feminist Biblical Interpretation (Boston: Beacon, 1984).Google Scholar
39 Jurgen Moltmann's and Edward Schillebeeckx's work on the Church and the Holy Spirit are key here, but also note Lampe, G. W. H., God as Spirit (Oxford: Clarendon, 1977);Google ScholarBoff, Leonardo, The Church: Charism and Power (New York: Crossroad, 1985);Google Scholar and Congar, Yves, I Believe in the Holy Spirit, 3 vols. (New York: Seabury, 1983).Google ScholarGutiérrez, Gustavo acknowledges the importance of this issue and Moltmann's, contribution in The Truth Shall Set You Free (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1990), 147.Google Scholar
40 See, e.g., the Introduction to Mysterium Salutis.
41 See de Lubac, Henri, La postérité spirituelle de Joachim de Flore, 2 vols. (Paris: Editions Lethielleux, 1979, 1981), 1:13–67; 2:435–50;Google Scholar and Ratzinger, Joseph, Eschatology, 13, 57–60, 211–14, 273.Google Scholar
42 Gutiérrez, Gustavo, A Theology of Liberation (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1988), 34ff.Google Scholar Liberation theologians have been criticized for advancing a “politically reductionistic” interpretation of the Bible by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith from a salvation history frame of reference. See “Instruction on Certain Aspects of the Theology of Liberation,” Origins 14 (1984): 193–204Google Scholar, and “Instruction on Christian Freedom and Liberation,” Origins 15 (1986): 713–28.Google Scholar
43 Theology of Liberation, 86. Gutiérrez more recently acknowledged that his claim that “history is one” was influenced by Hans Urs von Balthasar's and Henri de Lubac's work; see The Truth Shall Set You Free, 22, 124. Gutiérrez's avowal notwithstanding, there are equally important differences between these interpretations of history.
44 Theology of Liberation, 97. The salvation history motif drops out of Gutiérrez's subsequent works. Instead he emphasizes “the underside of history” as distinct from a progressive European view of history and society. Note in this context that Gutiérrez acknowledges his previous indebtedness to von Rad's biblical theology, but contends that it is no longer adequate. See “Theology from the Underside of History,” The Power of the Poor in History (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1983), 169–221Google Scholar, and The Truth Shall Make You Free, 23-32, 47-48.
45 See, e.g., Fiorenza, Elisabeth Schüssler, In Memory of Her; Judith Plaskow, Standing at Sinai: Judaism from a Feminist Perspective (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1990);Google ScholarSchneiders, Sandra M., Women and the Word (New York: Paulist, 1986);Google ScholarTrible, Phyllis, Texts of Terror: Literary-Feminist Headings of Biblical Narratives (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984).Google Scholar
46 See the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, “Declaration on the Question of the Admission of Women to the Ministerial Priesthood,” Origins 6 (1977): 517–24Google Scholar, and Paul, Pope John II, On the Dignity and the Vocations of Women (Boston: St. Paul Books, 1988).Google Scholar The extent and ramifications of the use of a salvation history model in official Church teachings over the last 25 years merits further investigation.
47 See Barr, James, Old and New in Interpretation, 70ff.Google Scholar Also important are Albrektson, B., History and Gods: An Essay on the idea of Historical Events as Divine Manifestations in the Ancient Near East and in Israel (Lund: Gleerup, 1967)Google Scholar, and Saggs, H. W. F., The Encounter with the Divine in Mesopotamia and Israel (London: Athlone, 1978).Google Scholar
48 Gnuse, Robert, Heilsgeschichte as a Model for Biblical Theology (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1988), 67, 139.Google Scholar
49 Heilsgeschichte, 99-100. He mentions the following as possible points of difference: (1) total freedom from nature imagery; (2) total affirmation of history as the arena for divine activity; (3) divine actions in history denote purpose; (4) long range purpose of plan in history; (5) view of God; (6) covenant; (7) developed concept of the divine word; (8) higher piety or morality; (9) pathos; (10) high literary quality. It is uncertain how biblical and Near Eastern scholars would respond to Gnuse's list.
50 See Ricoeur, Paul, “The History of Religions and the Phenomenology of Time Consciousness” in Kitagawa, J. M., ed., The History of Religions: Retrospect and Prospect (New York: Macmillan, 1985), 13–30.Google Scholar For related discussions of nature, creation, and history-centered theologies, see French's, William review essay, “Returning to Creation: Moltmann's Eschatology Naturalized,” Journal of Religion 68 (1988): 78–86CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and “Subject-centered and Creation-centered Paradigms in Recent Catholic Thought,” Journal of Religion 70 (1990): 48–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
51 See Gnuse, Heilsgeschichte; this position is also suggested by the editors of Mysterium Salutis.
52 I included Balthasar and Ratzinger in this category with certain qualifications. Balthasar uses the semantics of salvation history as an archetypal myth, but he recognizes the plurality of traditions, the occasional cacophany of these traditions, and he rejects any simple contrast between linear and cyclical traditions. Ratzinger raises some of his own criticisms of Protestants who speak of salvation history, specifically with regard to the compatability of metaphysics and salvation history, but he uses the phrase without discussing many of the critical issues reviewed here.
53 I wonder whether some people who have been influenced by Frei's, HansThe Eclipse of Biblical Narrative and George Lindbeck's The Nature of Doctrine (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1984)Google Scholar are not in fact in this category. The issue is related to Barth's position. Reventlow refers to Barth's important statements in favor of viewing the Bible in terms of salvation history. However, David Kelsey states that Barth finally distinguished biblical narrative and salvation history (The Uses of Scripture in Recent Theology [Philadelphia: Fortress, 1975], 50).Google Scholar See the references to salvation history in Placher, William, Unapologetic Theology (Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox, 1989), 123–35, esp. 127–28Google Scholar and in Greer, Rowan A., “The Christian Bible and Its Interpretation” in Greer, and Kugel, James L.. Early Biblical Interpretation (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1986), 107–209, esp. 140–41, 156, 162–68, 182, 185, and 195.Google Scholar The recent use of the phrase “The Drama of Salvation” (e.g., by Richard B. Hays an Raymond Sewager) deserves further scrutiny in this context.
54 To speak of the economy of salvation hearkens back to Irenaeus' Against Heresies which has been important for many interested in salvation history. See, e.g., Alfred Bengsch, Heilsgeschichte und Heilswissen: Eine Untersuchung zur Struktur und Entfaltung des Theologischen Denkens im Werk “Adversus Haereses” des Hl. Irenaus von Lyon (Leipzig: St. Benno-Verlag, 1957)Google Scholar, and Balthasar's, interpretation and criticisms, The Glory of the Lord, 2:31–94, esp. 90–92.Google Scholar To write of economies in the plural is to take into account the diversity of historical, cosmic, and literary vehicles in the one economy and to acknowledge Derrida's concern about absence, trace, and supplement. See Harvey, Irene, Derrida and the Economy of Difference (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1986), 203–15.Google Scholar
55 Schlomith Rommon-Kennan, drawing from Gérard Genette, develops the distinction between one story and many narratives that interpret this story. Christians must speak of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus as the core and norm of Christian faith, but this does not require isolating one plot for this story, which would betray the richness and diversity of the biblical witness. See Harrington, Daniel, “The Synoptic Gospels” in Collins, J. and Crossan, J. D., eds., The Biblical Heritage in Modern Catholic Scholarship (Wilmington, DE: Glazier, 1986);Google ScholarCollins, Adela Yarbro, Is Mark's Gospel a Life of Jesus? (Milwaukee, WI: Marquette University Press, 1990)Google Scholar: and Koester, Helmut, Ancient Christian Gospels: Their History and Development (Philadelphia: Trinity, 1990).Google Scholar
56 Post-structuralist thinkers, like Derrida, heighten attention to some (a few) aspects of inner-biblical, rabbinic, and early Christian exegesis. But their work does not warrant jettisoning the limitations placed on biblical interpretation by genre-structure, the style of individual authors, the subject matter of the work, and the social contexts out of which they emerge. Thus, I am not commending Mark C. Taylor's labyrinth of erring as a viable alternative to salvation history. Nor do I believe that Derrida's deconstruction of archaeology, teleology, and eschatology and Francois Lyotard's critique of meta-narratives are the last word. While Christian theology should critique religious and secular linearism as unworthy of Christianity and must assess diverse narrative modes of Christian discourse, it cannot abandon protology, teleology, and eschatology. Rather it is the responsibility of Christian theology not only to transmit cherished narratives, but also to reconfigure them in a manner that is faithful to the biblical witness and responsive to the present situation. In this task, theology is properly understood as contextual, practical (as in phronesis), and rhetorical.
57 Some biblical scholars and theologians use the structuralist term “intertextuality” when describing linguistic relationships between the biblical books, but I have chosen to speak of this as intratextuality because the focus at this point is on the relationships “within” (intra) the biblical canon, whereas I wish to speak of another intertextual interpretative task that concerns the relationships “between” (inter) canonical and non-canonical texts.
58 Balthasar argues that human experience offers a fragmented experience of God, and that classic philosophy, drama, and poetry present similar fragmented mediations. But he suggests that the scriptural world is a whole that transcends these fragments. I want to affirm and qualify Balthasar's claim by saying that the scriptures provide us with a fragmented whole. The picture the scriptures give us is not as clear as Balthasar sometimes suggests, but is more polyvalent, tensive, and sometimes problematic. For representative texts, see Theological Anthropology, 12-14, 95-101, 103-54; The Glory of the Lord, 1:29–30, 69–71, 118, 124–25, 434–35, 498–99;Google Scholar passages that may lend support to my formula can be found on 553, 639.
59 Typologies generate new meanings and thus exploit the openness in the text, but in this process they tend to bring closure and tie up loose ends. They remain an indispensable ingredient in inner-biblical exegesis and in Christian exegesis. It is not surprising that typologies received so much attention from the previous generation of scholars, especially Catholics. But there are other rhetorical strategies and methods of argument at work within biblical and early Christian writings that work with the indeterminacies within the biblical text. Herein lies the importance of recent work on inner-biblical and early Christian rhetorical strategies that adapt Jewish and Graeco-Roman genres.
60 The Company We Keep: An Ethics of Fiction (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988), 64.Google Scholar
61 Here I wish to affirm with George Lindbeck and his supporters that the biblical text functions as a whole for the religious community, but I disagree that it functions only as an intratextual whole. I believe that Balthasar provides us in certain ways with a more suitable, because more catholic understanding of how scripture and theologies are generated between cultures. But I would go farther than Balthasar in granting the mediating role of theology in relation to the distinctive intertextual and socio-political problems raised by modernity. Logos spermatikos are found even in the modern world.
62 New Testament examples include the use of Jewish and Graeco-Roman genres and modes of rhetorical argument in the New Testament, the dynamic and problematic importance of Gnostic texts and communities, as well as the relevance of the social and cultural matrix of Graeco-Roman society.
63 The old wisdom states: heresies help clarify orthodoxy; heresies arise when external philosophies and ideologies take precedence over Christian doctrines, scriptures, and rituals; and heresies are newer deviations from the older internal coherency of Christian identity. This internal/external logic is crucial for Christian discourse, but it is more complex than is sometimes suggested. Using this logic, Balthasar and Ratzinger complain about modern forms of Gnosticism. Modern mediating and hermeneutical theologians have urged care with this logic. Derrida's work raises related issues about this logic of inner and outer; see Derrida, , “Living On: Border Lines,” Deconstruction and Criticism (New York: Seabury, 1979)Google Scholar, and Gasche, Rodolphe, The Tain of the Mirror: Derrida and the Philosophy of Reflection (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1986), 278–83.Google Scholar
64 This last point is important because as we have indicated a salvation history model can distort or repress political issues and dynamics. Moreover, it can gloss over unresolved conflicts and discontinuities within the biblical witness and in the history of dogma. These provide some reasons why the historical-critical approaches to the Bible remain necessary. But, of course, these methods must be complemented by other methods of inquiry—literary, sociological, archaeological, et al. See Collins, John J., “Old Testament Theology,” The Biblical Heritage in Modern Catholic Scholarship, 29Google Scholar, and Schneiders, Sandra M., “Does the Bible Have a Postmodern Message?” in Burnham, F. B., ed., Postmodern Theology: Christian Faith in a Pluralist World (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1989), 56–73.Google Scholar
