Douglas Campbell, Stephen Colbert and Katy Perry – Romans 1:18-32

So, what do Douglas Campbell, Stephen Colbert and Katy Perry have in common?  Read on and find out!

In Douglas Campbell’s book The Deliverance of God, one of the main propositions asserted is that in Romans 1:18-32, Paul is using a rhetorical device called “speech-in-character” or prosopopoeia – προσωποποιία (pgs 532-33) allowing Paul to create an opposing case in order to invalidate it and reveal the veracity of his own teaching.

Since many people, even in academic circles, are unfamiliar with this rhetorical device, Campbell goes to great lengths to explain and inform the reader just how effective this tactic could be when deployed in a New Testament letter.

The ramifications of this are incredibly significant.  In short, if Paul’s teaching is not present in verses 18-32 but it is instead something that Paul is refuting, then false teaching has been passed off as truth.  I will address the myriad of effects that this could cause in later posts.

I believe that Campbell makes a very strong case that Paul was using “speech-in-character” in Romans 1:18-32.  But I had a couple questions and wanted to dig a bit further, so I wrote to him in July of 2010 and asked the following questions.  He was kind enough to reply and also to give me permission to post up his responses here on my blog.

My questions centered around the historical interpretation of Romans.  Why wasn’t the correct interpretation passed down generation to generation in the church?  Why did the shift in interpretation occur?  To that, Campbell answered:

I think the shift happened as soon as the original situation was lost, when all the cues in context were lost. It’s a bit like watching a Stephen Colbert episode without knowing all about the politicians and issues that he’s making fun of. Satirical and ironic texts are very much creatures of the moment, and hence vulnerable to their loss of immediate context.

The church also didn’t generally pay much attention to contingency; this has only been recovered in the modern period.

The church has also, unfortunately, often had a theological viewpoint closer to Paul’s opponents than to Paul. Not all of the church, but a sizable chunk. So they wouldn’t detect a problem beginning with a harsh foundationalism. Sad but true. And this applies to certain Reformation readings as much as to certain Patristic and Catholic readings. The struggle for grace and against conditionality has gone on in every major church tradition right back to the inception of the church I fear. Paul understood grace, like Augustine, because he’d had a very very big involvement with sin. “He who has been forgiven much loves much.”

So, are you saying that the cues for any given document could be lost, yet the practice of προσοποποιια could continue and be recognized in later documents? (ie Origen’s responses to Celsus in The True Discourse)

You should be able to reconstruct prosopopoiia in a later historical critical reading. Also any irony or satire.

But prosopopoiia wouldn’t necessarily be coterminous with a local satirical target. Justin and Origen both wrote more generic texts than a Pauline letter.

It makes good sense to me that very early on the church lost Paul’s intent in Romans 1:18-32.

Consider that the use of the New Testament writings changed soon after their immediate use.  Romans for example was written specifically to the churches in Rome with a specific purpose in mind.  Yet, just a few generations later, that same letter was handled more like a theological reference as the churches began to universalize and solidify their beliefs and teachings, especially in refutation of error.  As such, much of the original intent and purpose was lost and the letter was read straight through as the teachings of Paul, and therefore the inspired Word of God.

The $20,000.00 question, then, is how does Campbell’s suggested reading affect a view of the book of Romans as the Word of God?  I do not see how it would change that in the least.  The only difference is that we would recognize that Romans 1:18-32 is a bad example of preaching, as the context or Romans 2-4 clearly reveals.

To that I say good riddance!  Seriously, take a look at this church billboard.  A modern-day manifestation straight out of Romans 1:18-32!  And we wonder how to be more effective at outreach…but that’s another post entirely.

On Genre – Part 2

Going a step deeper into the genre of Mark’s gospel with H. C. Kee’s work Community of the New Age: Studies In Mark’s Gospel, I found it interesting that he promotes Mark’s structure as being based on “an apocalyptic community.”

Indeed, there are apocalyptic themes and language in Mark, as is clearly attested in many introductory works (cf. Bailey and Vander Broek’s Literary Forms in the New Testament pgs 122-129), but what caught my eye was Kee’s implication that the gospel of Mark came out of, was developed, or was formed in an apocalyptic community.  In my mind, that takes the whole discussion of genre/structure to another level.

Kee cites the Old Testament book of Daniel as “the classic document produced in the apocalyptic category.” (65)  Next, he goes on to cite thematic and structural similarities between Daniel and Mark.  Finally, he reveals the aims of apocalyptic texts as follows:

1. The rule of God and its triumph
2. The defeat of the hostile powers
3. The redefinition of the community
4. The certainty of the outcome
5. Stand firm!

Now, while I certainly see these elements in the gospel of Mark, I think that the attempt to link the literary structure to Daniel and further to ascertain the writer and readers of Mark to be “an apocalyptic community” stretches the plausibility of the case beyond what seems reasonable.  It is at this point that it seems more confidence is put in the recipients than the text itself; that the story cryptically speaks more about the hearers and readers than about Jesus himself.

I think that in light of more recent scholarship (cf. Bauckham’s, The Gospels For All Christians) the genre of Mark’s gospel should simply focus on the text as a preservation of the purpose and mission of Jesus Christ.  Some may classify this as  Greco-Roman biography, others, seemingly the church itself classified it simply as gospel.  In doing so, we diminish neither the content of the gospel nor the richness of the text as written, most likely in this case, by Mark.  This frees us to see, hear, and feel the story of Jesus and draw the impact of the story into our hearts and minds. 

It is in this way that the stories about Jesus were preserved among the community for future generations.  In short, the focus was intended to remain on the good news of Jesus the Messiah, the Son of God.

On Genre (and Rabbit Trails) – Part 1

As I begin my in-depth studies in Mark, I have been especially enjoying R.T. France’s work, and became sidetracked by some of his introductory comments and footnotes.  For some odd reason, I am one of those who read footnotes as voraciously as the rest of the text, often wondering why this is not covered with the attention and respect it deserves.  But enough about “rabbit trails”…

It appears that many these days prefer to see Mark classified as Greco-Roman biography.  Certainly, Ben Witherington  and Ernest Best make this case in their work on Mark.  Then another take is that it is generally uncategorizable, seemingly unable to fit neatly into any one category, thus the development of something new to the first century literature – gospel.

That said, a little rabbit trail caught my eye, especially since I am reading and writing with the earliest church in mind.  First, thanks to a footnote from R.T. France, I came upon H. C. Kee’s work Community of the New Age: Studies In Mark’s Gospel  and second, (thanks to a quote from Kee) is Erich Auerbach’s Mimesis.

First, in chapter three of his book, Kee is delving into the literary genre of Mark and begins by explaining why Mark doesn’t fit into the genre of a tragedy. 

To make his point, Kee quotes Auerbach stating that any one gospel account “fits into no antique genre,” and is:

“too serious for comedy, too everyday for tragedy, politically too insignificant for history – and the form which was given it is one of such immediacy that its like does not exist in the literature of antiquity.”

That alone would be enough to convince most that the gospels seemingly defy categorization, are altogether “other,” and are perhaps in need of a new classification.  But Auerbach goes on to pay the gospels, and indeed the earliest Christians, an even higher honor by stating “that the gospels evoke ‘the most serious and most significant sympathy’ within us because they portray:

‘something which neither the poets nor the historians of antiquity ever set out to portray: the birth of a spiritual movement in the depths of the common people, from within the everyday occurences of contemporary life, which thus assumes an importance it could never have assumed in antique literature.'”

 So, according to Auerbach, it is the general church community as a whole that makes this unique among writings and unclassifiable in genre.  The community not only maintains the essence of the gospel among one another, but also promotes and develops the gospel material into fruition among “common people” and in “everyday occurences.”  The picture this paints for me is one of vibrant gatherings of the church flourishing not in any technically religious manner, but in the everyday life shared with one another.

In short, I see that Mark was both writing with his immediate church communities in mind, those churches with which he had contact, as well as the churches throughout the Empire.  At this point, I doubt that his intention was to write a traditional Greco-Roman biography, though this may fit the bill from both a reader/hearer in the first century as well as an academic point of view today. 

No, I am inclined to see Mark as a more evangelistic/pastoral work, taking on some of the more popular methods of writing and transmission with the goal being to speak directly to the church at large in an edifying manner with the intent to preserve the tradition in writing.  Many see that the gospel of Mark is a collage of sorts drawn together with purpose, so in this way, nothing I am saying is new.  Yet, I think there is something to be said for a more holistic view, or one that takes in account not simply that the so-called Markan community needed a gospel, but that this was quite possibly what the churches were already saying and doing among one another, and therefore was preserved by the writer of Mark in narrative form.