Malcolm Matthew R. - Horizons in hermeneutics : a festschrift in honor of Anthony C. Thiselton

Horizons in Hermeneutics

A Festschrift in Honor of

A NTHONY C. T HISELTON

Edited by

Stanley E. Porter & Matthew R. Malcolm

W ILLIAM B. E ERDMANS P UBLISHING C OMPANY

G RAND R APIDS , M ICHIGAN / C AMBRIDGE , U.K.

2013 Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.

All rights reserved

Published 2013 by

Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.

2140 Oak Industrial Drive N.E., Grand Rapids, Michigan 49505 /

P.O. Box 163, Cambridge CB3 9PU U.K.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Horizons in hermeneutics: a festschrift in honor of Anthony C. Thiselton /

edited by Stanley E. Porter & Matthew R. Malcolm.

p. cm.

Includes .

ISBN 978-0-8028-6927-2 (pbk.: alk. paper); 978-1-4674-3757-8 (ePub); 978-1-4674-3724-0 (Kindle)

1. Bible Hermeneutics. 2. Bible Criticism, interpretation, etc.

3. Thiselton, Anthony C. I. Thiselton, Anthony C.

II. Porter, Stanley E., 1956- III. Malcolm, Matthew R., 1975

BS476.H63 2013

220.601 dc23

2012032134

www.eerdmans.com

Contents

Stanley E. Porter and Matthew R. Malcolm

Stanley E. Porter and Matthew R. Malcolm

John Goldingay

Robert Morgan

Mark L. Y. Chan

Matthew R. Malcolm

Richard S. Briggs

James D. G. Dunn

David Parris

Richard H. Bell

Tom Greggs

Stephen Fowl

Stanley E. Porter

John B. Thomson

R ICHARD H. B ELL , Department of Theology and Religious Studies, University of Nottingham, UK

R ICHARD S. B RIGGS , Cranmer Hall Theological College, Durham, UK

M ARK L. Y. C HAN , Trinity Theological College, Singapore

S TEPHEN F OWL , Department of Theology, Loyola University, Baltimore, Maryland

J AMES D. G. D UNN , Department of Theology, University of Durham, UK

J OHN G OLDINGAY , Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena, California

T OM G REGGS , Kings College, University of Aberdeen, Scotland

M ATTHEW R. M ALCOLM , Trinity Theological College, Perth, Western Australia

R OBERT M ORGAN , Faculty of Theology, University of Oxford, UK

D AVID P ARRIS , Fuller Theological Seminary, Colorado Springs, Colorado

S TANLEY E. P ORTER , McMaster Divinity College, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada

J OHN B. T HOMSON , Diocese of Sheffield, Rotherham, UK

Stanley E. Porter and Matthew R. Malcolm

The title of this volume is Horizons in Hermeneutics. By selection of this title, we are making an explicit allusion to the important contribution to the field of hermeneutics by Professor Anthony C. Thiselton, and using terminology that has come to be identified with him and his work. The title is not so simple as it may at first seem, as it utilizes one of the dominant metaphors in the field of hermeneutics as a means of extending the field itself. Indeed, this volume is intended to honor Professor Thiselton for his significant influence and impact upon the fields of hermeneutics, biblical studies, and their complex relationship. As editors of this volume, however, our intention has gone beyond that of simply feting the honoree, but we have attempted to honor Professor Thiselton by making this book a contribution in its own right to this complex of topics. Rather than gathering a vaguely-related group of essays as a Festschrift, we have asked contributors to reflect on the impact of Professor Thiseltons work, and thereby to contribute to an exemplification, extension, or critical adjustment to his and related approaches.

For this reason, there will be some value in introducing these contributions at the same time as we reflect on Professor Thiseltons approach to biblical hermeneutics. To return to the imagery of the title, Thiseltons

Such a horizonal engagement must begin with the primary acknowledgment that the text to be interpreted is genuinely other.

Doing justice to the otherness of the biblical text involves attention to the entextualized directedness that the varied scriptural texts exhibit as products of real authors living in a real (ancient) world. With a similar conviction, the present volume of essays begins with the section Facing the Other. The essays in this section reflect on elements of this engagement with a plurality of variously directed texts that come to us from a horizon that is different from our own.

The section begins with John Goldingays essay, Poetry and Theology in Isaiah 5666, in which Goldingay reflects on the way in which poetry is utilized in Isaiah as a tool by which the unsayable may be suggestively expressed. Goldingays essay is a fine exemplification of Professor Thiseltons conviction that the culturally sensitive analysis of compositional devices need not be pejoratively seen as a nave attempt to master the psychological intentions of a dead author, but rather may be understood as careful attention to the entextualization of performative force.

Following this is Robert Morgans essay, Thiselton on Bultmanns Sachkritik. Morgan appreciatively and critically engages with Professor Thiseltons work on Rudolf Bultmann in his The Two Horizons. In the light of Professor Thiseltons commitment to honoring the otherness of the biblical text, Morgan explores the possibility that Bultmanns Sachkritik may be retrieved as a way of doing just that. Rather than necessarily exerting a domineering control over the text, Bultmanns approach may be regarded as an attempt to do justice to the (entextualized) intentions of the biblical authors.

The following three essays, while fitting within this section of Facing the Other, begin to mark a transition within this volume to the subsequent section, as they consider both features of directedness in Paul, and ways in which Paul himself was part of a tradition that passed on lived readings of ancient texts.

Mark Chans essay, Experience and the Transfiguration of Tradition in Pauls Hermeneutical Christology, examines the embodiment of understanding in the life of the interpreter. Bearing witness to Professor Thiseltons long interest in embodied discipleship, Chan considers the way in which Paul may be seen as an exemplification of the embodied hermeneut, renegotiating his understanding of the Scriptures he had inherited in the light of his experience of Christ on the Road to Damascus.

The next essay, by Matthew Malcolm, pursues a somewhat parallel investigation, considering Paul as a life-affected interpreter of his scriptural tradition. This essay, Kerygmatic Rhetoric in New Testament Epistles, suggests that New Testament epistles can be fruitfully analyzed as products of this sort of hermeneutical renegotiation, a renegotiation centered on the kerygma of messianic death and resurrection.

Professor Thiseltons work expresses the tension between Friedrich Schleiermachers summons to interpret the biblical texts within a broader framework of general hermeneutics, The final essay in this section of the book may be read as speaking to this tension. The essay is Richard Briggs The Rock Was Christ: Pauls Reading of Numbers and the Significance of the Old Testament for Theological Hermeneutics. Briggs considers Paul as an interpreter of Scripture whose approach presents a stumbling block to Schleiermachers contention.

The next section of the book moves from Facing the Other to Engaging the Other. One of Professor Thiseltons abiding concerns is that those in modern life-worlds might effectively engage with the biblical texts, as the interpreters horizon moves towards fusion with the horizon of the text.

The essays in this next section of the book, then, attempt to exemplify or reflect on this interest in an engagement with ancient texts that pays attention to their reception, evaluation, and effective history.

The first of these essays is James Dunns The Earliest Interpreters of the Jesus Tradition: A Study in Early Hermeneutics. Dunn compares the earliest reception of the Gospel of John and the