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134 - Poststructuralism and the New Testament: Derrida and Foucault at the Foot of the Cross |
Poststructuralism and the New Testament: Derrida
and Foucault at the Foot of the Cross
By Stephen D. Moore
Minneapolis, Fortress, 1994. 143 pp. $12.00.
Seldom will a book spur minds into creative thinking as will this one. Even titles in the table of contents-"The Hydraulics of a Liquid Metaphor" in a chapter on the Samaritan woman at Jacob's well-launch readers on a voyage over slippery waters, moving not always by syllogistic logic but by drifts-drifts from the Derridean canon to the Derridean cannon, from testing the water to the living water, from literal to figurative, from metaphorical to literal.
The heart of the book is Moore's readings of Jesus' encounter with the Samaritan woman and the Pauline interpretation of Jesus' crucifixion. But unmuddled presentations of Derrida and Foucault preface and penetrate these readings.
Moore raises the possibility that the biblical text is ethically flawed (for example, misogynistic) and reads it for hierarchical oppositions that he wishes to break down. Whereas interpreters often give Jesus a higher position above the Samaritan woman-figurative over literal-Moore turns the tables. In her insight, the woman outdoes Jesus, who, thirsty with desire, appears as one in need. The woman's remark that the well is deep is not a crudely literalistic misunderstanding of Jesus' living water but a play on the profundity of living water.
Merely inverting the hierarchical opposition between Jesus and the woman, however, still privileges one against the other. Therefore, Moore moves to a stage where literal and figurative are not in opposition but amalgamated. The Johannine Jesus does not inscribe the literal over the
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136 - Poststructuralism and the New Testament: Derrida and Foucault at the Foot of the Cross |
figurative (or vice versa) but breaks down the wall dividing them and mediates reverberations back and forth between them.
Departing from Foucault's identification of power pervading the relationships of discourse, Moore presents a striking reading of the Pauline interpretation of Jesus' crucifixion. Refusing to privilege any vantage point in the matrix of power relations, Moore does not privilege God with respect to Jesus. God emerges as a torturer and God's Son as the victim. Nevertheless, with Christianity, new power relations emerge-pastoral power. In contrast to royal demands for sacrifice from subjects to save the throne, pastoral power sacrifices for the flock.
Following Derrida, Moore advances the notion that language is arbitrary and differential. With no center to provide certainty, it is out of control. So Moore follows a reading strategy where he looks for tensions, inconsistencies, and aporias. Language is out of control for biblical authors and biblical commentators. Moreover, Moore erases the distance between interpreters and the text and shows that commentators take up positions within the text. They attempt to speak as if from outside the text only to show up ironically as deficient participators in the text. Further, the language of commentators, itself is tangled in indeterminacy
But is it altogether? Moore's introductions to deconstruction are lucid even for non-specialists. Foucault's "overriding concern . . ." sounds conspicuously like a center. Or, Moore reports that Foucault attacked universals with the claim that power is immanent in all relationships (rather universal). Much of Moore's own language is referential in the sense that it explains Derrida, Saussure, de Man, Foucault, and Lacan. So he uses an unconventional reading strategy in interpreting the Bible but not in interpreting deconstructionists.
My personal acquaintance with Moore makes the correlation of his autobiography with his interpretive strategies all the more intriguing. Though I have known him as a professor at Wichita State University and sparred with him in the Society of Biblical Literature, his autobiographical references take me deeper into his confidence because he unveils his childhood horror at Jesus' crucifixion, his involvement with hallucinogenic drugs, his life in an Irish monastery, and his development from historical critic to deconstructionist.
Though it partially challenges Moore's thesis that language is out of control, I venture a compliment. This is a coherent and reader-friendly account of deconstruction and deconstructionist readings. It fits its own claim to be an anti-authoritarian resisting reading. But if hierarchical oppositions melt away, then there is little possibility of evaluating the book as good or bad. So I relate my experience in the reading. From its spurs that prod my mind, living water wells up.
Robert L. Brawley
McCormick Theological Seminary
Chicago, IL