1996 - Andrew Irvine - ‘Antichristologies’. A Comparison of Juan Luis Segundo and Burton Mack

7/27/2019 1996 - Andrew Irvine - Antichristologies. A Comparison of Juan Luis Segundo and Burton Mack

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http://paa.sagepub.com/Theological StudiesPacifica: Australasian

http://paa.sagepub.com/content/9/3/311The online version of this article can be found at:

DOI: 10.1177/1030570X9600900306

1996 9: 311PacificaAndrew Irvine

''Antichristologies'': A Comparison of Juan Luis Segundo and Burton Mack

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P A C I F I C A 9 ( O C T O B E R 1 9 96 ) 3 11

"Ant ichr is to logies": A Compar ison of Juan LuisSegundo and Bur ton Mack

A n d r e w I r v i n e

Abstract: Relat ing the h is to r ical Jesus to images o f Jesus in Chr is t iant rad i t ion and to the exper iences o f a con temporary aud ience has p roven ab u r d e n s o m e t a s k i n t h e m o d e r n p e r i o d . I n t h e p r e s e n t d a y , v a r i o u sd is junct ions and en tang lem ents wi th re l ig ious an d non-re l ig io us featu reso f so c ia l l i f e i n t en s i fy th e c r i s i s o f i d en t i ty ex p er i en ced b y m an yC h r i s t i an s . Ju an L u i s S e g u n d o an d B u r to n Mack s t a n d o u t a s tw oin te rp re t e r s of t h e h i s to ri ca l Jesu s w h o h av e ap p ro ach e d th e p ro b lem indifferent w ay s, no t so m uc h to resto re the trad it ion for their au die nce as tosu b jec t i t t o r ad ica l h i s to r ica l c r i t ic i sm . A s th i s s tu d y d em o n s t r a t e s ,hermeneu t ics does no t so lve the larger p rob lem of con temporary Chr is t ianiden t i ty bu t i t does enab le exchange between very d i f feren t accoun ts o fthe p rob le m, in tu r n c lar i fy ing w ha t i s a t s take in the in terp re t ive task : anin terp reter ' s p resen t conduct in the wor ld .

INTRODUCTIONJUAN LUIS SEGUNDO AND BURTON MACK, tw o lead ing in terp re ters ofthe historical Jesus, hav e pu blished quite different acco unts of Jesus inrecent wo rks. In The historical Jesus of the synoptics, Segundo presentsJesus as the assassinated prophet of the kingdom of God, a kingdomthat is the liberation of the poor and marginal and a judgement upontheir religiously pow erful oppre ssors. Segu ndo is am ong the foremostLatin American liberation theologians, working in a social order whichma y still reaso nably be called Ch risten do m . In his estim ate, Jesusspecifically legitimates the cause of the poor, not of Christians, savingthe poo r even over against Ch rist ians. Mack teaches at Clarem ontSchool of Theology in south ern California. H e is best kno w n for w orkon the Gospel of Mark and Q, in which he argues that the fragments ofa picture wh ich may b e assembled of Jesus are almost anti-heroic a nddo not sup por t the adulatory a nd imperious images of him that m anyNo rth American and other Christians cultivate. In A m yth of innocence,Mack proposes that Jesus was more like the Cynic philosophers, whowandered the Hellenist ic world poking fun at the pretensions and

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3 1 2 P A C I F I C A 9 ( O C T O B E R 1 9 % )

con ven tions of all m em be rs of society, tha n he w as a religious p artisan.For reasons that Mack believes are indeterminable, this Jesus wascaught u p in a legal process that led , as it so often did, to crucifixion.W hat value for S egu ndo 's liberative hopes is a Jesus who se "gospel"reflects the diffuse, largely unreconstructive social critique of ancientCynicism? Do es not Segu nd o's social analysis deny his ow n faith inCh ristian trad ition an d confirm M ack's polemic against the Gospels? IfMack has dispelled the violent Christian myth of absolute beginnings,then how shall Christians, cut off from their religious cultural past, notstar t ove r w ith an ab solu te orig inatio n of new life? Th is stud yaddresses why and how these two interpreters have arrived at suchap par en tly different "m em ories" of w ho Jesus wa s, and identifies majordifferences, as well as som e similarities, in their work . Th e dialog uew ith Se gu nd o's and M ack's texts will be carried on using herme neuticaltheo ry, prim arily as dev elop ed by Paul Ricoeur. A consciouslytheoretical approach renders their "conversation" intelligible in such aw ay th at it does not a pp ear only as contradiction, bu t as a set of creativeatte m pts to register the significance of early Christian textual witnesses(the Synoptic Go spels in Seg un do's case, the Gospel of M ark and Q inM ack's) for presen t-day situations. This com parison of their overallmethods identifies some specific elements of their interpretations that,worked out of their conflict with each other, are suggestive for aninterpre tation of Jesus.

AGAINST PRESUMPTUOUS INTERPRETATION OF JESUSPaul Ricoeur defines interpretation as "the reply to the fundamentaldistanciation constituted by the objectification of man in works of discourse, an objectification comparable to that expressed in the productsof his labour and his art".1 The relation of speaking and writing - thatis , the production of texts - epitomises, for Ricoeur, this "fundamentalcharacteristic of the very historicity of human experience ...communication in and throu gh d istance".2 Textual interpretation cannot replicate an au tho r's utterance. But an interpreter mu st "rep ly" to distan ciation by interp reting texts app ropria tely to the historical particularity

1. Pau l Ricoeur , "The herm ene ut ical funct ion of dis tancia t ion" , in Hermeneutics and thehuman sciences (Camb r idge : Cam br idge Univer s it y Press, 1981) 138.2. Ricoeu r , "Th e he rm en eu t ica l funct ion of dis tan cia t ion " , 131. O n the re la t ion ofspeak i ng and wr i t i ng , R icoeur wri tes , "The f reeing of the wr i t te n mater ia l wi th respec t toth e dialo gica l func t ion of disco urs e is the m os t signif icant effect of wri t in g. I t imp lies thatth e r e l a t i on be tw ee n wr i t i ng an d r ea d in g i s no l on ger a pa r t i cu l a r case of t he r e l a t ionb e t w e e n speak ing and hea r ing . . . . d i s t anc i a t i on i s no t t he p roduc t o f me thodology andh e n c e som eth ing su per f luou s an d pa ras it i ca l ; r a the r i t is cons t i tu t i ve of t he phe no me nonof the text as wr i t in g."



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IRVINR ANTICHRISTOLOGIES 3 13of his or her own se tting. Th at is, interp retation is expre ssing, no tparroting, the mea ning of a texf s me aning in particular situations.3Reminding their readers of distanciation is a central task carried outby Segu nd o and M ack. Th e texts of the Bible, especially the ch ara cterisation s of Jesus in the Gospe ls (by Christians at least), are frequen tlyapplied normatively to human questions of value and action withoutaccounting for distanciation. Th e result - w ha t Ricoeur calls a naivereading - does not sufficiently distinguish the interpreter's concernsfrom the conc erns of the text or the con cerns of the auth or. Th e result,outw orking in hu m an values and actions, may be detrim ental . AsSandra Schneiders succinctly avers, distanciation protects the readerfrom the text and the text from the rea der .4Both Segundo and Mack conscientiously explicate distanciation as akind of pro test against naive interpretation in their contexts. Se gu nd ointerprets Jesus from the position he shares with fellow-UruguayanChristians, who suffer in a society in which th power-holders mostlyidentify them selve s as Ch ristian s too. He is intent on prote cting th eGospels from those power-holders who read them as authorising theinequ ities of U rug ua ya n society. Mack interpr ets Jesus in light of hisperception that Christians have, for centuries, authorised innum erab leacts of destruction and hatred on the basis of Mark's story of the deathof Jesus. Mack con clud es that Mark is too ope n to tha t legitim atingfunction. H e aims to protect read ers from the text.

INTERPRETATION AS A HUMAN CONDITIONDistanciation is a fundamental characteristic of human experience,says Ricoeur, and Segundo and Mack articulate distanciation throughthe anthropological framework they bring to interpretation: implicitwithin their frame wo rks are accou nts of wr iting. Each interp rete r'sresponses to distanciat ion are reflected in how each treats theinscription of Jesus in the texts they inte rpre t.

3. I t w a s F r e g e w h o a t t e m p t e d t o e x p r e s s t h e " m e a n i n g o f ( a) m e a n i n g " b yd is t ingu ish ing Bedeutung ("significance" / "reference") and Sinn ("sens e"). E. D. Hir sch ispe rha ps the bes t -kn ow n advoca te of such a theoret ica l posi t io n in Enghsh . For h im , thesense o f a tex t i s g rounded in the au thor i ta t ive in ten t ion o f an au thor and we must a l lowthe tex f s significance for us to be con trolle d by the sen se. See E. D. Hi rsc h, Validity ininterpretation (New Haven and London: Yale Universi ty Press, 1967) 209-44. For a variantuse of the dist inction, see Ricoeur, "The hermeneutical function of distanciation", 140-42.O n an o th e r s id e , m o t i f s t h a t m ig h t b e su m m ed u p in " th e d ea th o f t h e au th o r" (R o lan dBar thes) have been us ed to cr i t ique the suggest ion o f qual i ta t ive var ia t ion wi th in me an ing .A p p rec ia t in g th e i ro n y o f s in g l in g o u t n am es , see Jacq u es D er r id a , " S ig n a tu re ev en tcontext" in Margins of philosophy (Chicago: The Universi ty of Chicago Press, 1982) 307-30.H e r e D e r r i d a w o r k s w i t h t h e n o t i o n o f iteration i n d i s t i n c t i o n f r o m t r a d i t i o n a linterpretation.4. S an d ra M. S ch n e id e r s , The revelatory text: interpreting the New Testament as SacredScripture (San Francisco: Har pe r San Fran cisco, 1991) 169.



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Segundo: Rel ig ion as Better or Worse Interpretat ive StrategySegundo sets out an anthropology in Faith and ideologies, the firstvolume of his major christological work 5 He argues that there are twobasic dim en sio ns of hu m an bein g. The first, w hich he calls faith,

involves our decisions about values and meaning by which to l ive.These decisions are made before their outcome in concrete situationscan be gauged, so Segundo calls them "transcendent data". 6 T hesecond d imension, ideology, involves choosing m ethod s and m eans bywh ich to enact values concretely. The tw o dime nsions interact: faithcan evaluate ideological choices, and the problems and solutions ofeffectiveness influence the decision of valu es, the character of faith. Butfaith is primal.Faith is not intrinsically religious in Se gu nd o's terminology . Hecontrasts his account with theologies more schematised by sociologicalmo dels (he takes David Tracy's Blessed rage for order as a foil) wh ich setreligion as such as an anthrop ologica l constant. For Tracy, religionexpresses engagement with "universal and elemental features of humanexperience".7 Segundo objects that a person's engagement with thesefeatures of existence precedes, and may well, on principle of faith (inSe gu ndo 's sense), prescind from, rel igious expression. Segu ndo isconcerned, secondly, that Tracy's model legitimates all religions justbecause they are religious, before critically examining the actions theysponsor, and that protest is thereby disarmed.Segun do sum ma rises his account by explaining that:the "div ine na m e" an d the "religion" associated with it do not at alldesignate the "faith" which gives value structure to life; insteadthey designate an " inst rument" , a method, by which to at tainvalu es that have been fixed beforehand and tha t are inde pen den t ofthe god w ho is ado pted and ado red. In other wo rds, perh aps inmost instances with which we are acquainted, the religious realm isan instrumental, essentially "ideological" realm....8Thus, w hen Segun do comes to the gospels in The historical Jesus of theSynoptics, he treats them as ideological interpretations of a faith understood in Jesus, that is, as religious texts. Th e faith un der stoo d in Jesusstands in cri t ical relat ionship to i ts many interpretat ions, such asreligious gro up s in conflict in Se gun do's Uru gua y, and th e gospels. It isa criterion which Se gund o attem pts to reconstruct. The basic problemfor Segundo's reconstruction is that his only sources on Jesus are

5. Ju an L u i s S eg u n d o , Faith and ideologies, Volume I of Jesus of Nazareth yesterday andtoday (Maryknoll , New York: Orbis Books, 1984).6 . Segundo , Faith and ideologies, 72-74.7 . Da v id Tracy , Blessed rage for order: the new pluralism in theology (New York: SeaburyPress , 1975) 92. Cited in Segun do, Faith and ideologies, 35-6.8 . Segundo , Faith and ideologies, 39.



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I R V I N E A NTiCHRisTOLOGiES 315already ideological interpretations of the faith. He is aw are of this to anextent, though, and his approach still has considerable power, as weshall see.Drawing mainly on prophetic texts in the Hebrew Bible, Segundobelieves he sees some continuity of values, enacted with greater orlesser effectiveness by persons in many different historical situations.Clearly, per son s coming after these texts can refer to these "witnesses"as they dec ide their own faith and ideological disposition. "Jesus ma declear his continuity with a group of human beings who were deeplyunited in their anthropological "faith' and who found support in eachother for the task of learning how to learn", he writes. This continuityand unity in learning how to learn define faith-tradition for Segundo.9Borrowing Elisabeth Schssler-Fiorenza's term, fai th-tradit ion is a"dangerous mem ory".1 0 The argument is crucial to Segundo's wholeproject since it enables him to deal with the experience of " rea ladve rsaries [being] regard ed as coreligionists".11 Protest is rearmed.

Mack: "From Interpretation to Event" -The Backwards Myth of Christian OriginsIn the introduction to A myth of innocence, Burton Mack asks, "Whatif the several diver se pic tures of Jesus contained in the New Testamentwe re less herm eneu tical with reg ard to the historical Jesus an d m ore the

creation of m yth s of origin for movements in need of rationalisation?"12

Mack's anthropological presuppositions stem from notions workedout by Michel Foucault in his histories of hum an "nature " . Foucaul tdefers the idea of fundamental structures of human being. He traceshuman being as textual interpretation. "N ot the mythic events at thebeginn ing, but the social occasions of their being ima gined w ould be th ething to unders tand" , wr i tes Mack. "To unders t and the originalpu rpose of the belated gospel would be to unders t and the socialfunction of the Christian claim to pure origination, unique vision, andnovel social order. The fantasy of an order of things without precursormig ht actually be capable of explanation." 13W hereas Segundo read s the gospels as focal po ints of testimony in afai th t radi t ion, Mack, in A myth of innocence, emphas i ses l esstranscendent social factors affecting the early Jesus movements, andMark's community in particular. The Gospel of Mark is a "religious"text, in the sense that:

9 . Segundo , Faith and Ideologies, 74-76.10 . Elisabeth Schss ler -F io renza, In memory of her: a feminist theological reconstruction ofChristian origins (Ne w Y ork: Cro ssro ad, 1987) 31.11 . Schssler-Fiorenza, In memory of her, 249.12 . Burton Mack , A myth of innocence: Mark and Christian origins (Ph i ladelph ia : For t ressPres s, 1988) 16.13 . Mack, A myth of innocence, 8-9.



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Religious symbo ls function, how eve r, at a certain distance from theactu al stat e of affairs experien ced in the daily ro un d. Theyarticulate a displaced system (imaginary, ideal, "sacred", markedoff) as a cou nterp oint to the wa y things usually go. It is the spacewithin which the negotiations fundamental to social intercoursetake place - reflection, critique, rationalisation, compromise, play,humor, and so forth.14This text sustained "a movement set adrift in very high seas". 1 5 Themovement , Mark ' s communi ty , was a group of " Jesus people" ,proba bly living in south ern Syria. They we re Jews and Gen tiles wh o,because of their mutual association, came into conflict with moreri tual ly obs erv an t Jew s. The confl ict eve ntual ly led to thei rexcommunication.16

Mark's gospel purports to recount the origin of his community in anearlier time, but in fact it originates an identity, textually, by which thecommunity can legitimate itself in opposition to the synagogue Jews.Rather than an interpretation in the tradition of a faith understood inJesus, Mack interprets the gospel as a "gradual construction" which"took place in the interest of articulating not only how it was at thebeg inning , but h ow it w as or should be at the several junctu res of socialhistory".17Th is legitimating text, a brief, blu nt na rrativ e, is created by conflatingthe history of the community and words and actions of their founder,Jesus. Jesus is characterised as an innocent man who exceeds theMarkan com m unity 's opp one nts in piety and wisdom . That latercom mu nity's opp on en ts even tually kill him. Therefore, Jesus "w asinnoce nt with respect to the 'law s' of the 'kin gd om of G od '. H e wa smartyred as an offender against the laws of the Jews." 18 On thisread ing, Jesus w as never a scapegoat. M ark scapegoated "the Jews" forhis own enmities.Henceforward Christians have found their identity in "a myth ofinno cen ce". M ack 's rsu m of the pro du ction of a Christian originarticulates the "da ng ero us mem ory" woven through the text. M odernJesus scholarsh ip h as suffered because scholars hav e confused the genreand n atu re of the m aterials. Ultimately they, too, hav e parro ted themyth and not interpreted text, argues Mack.19The anthropological presuppositions of Segundo and Mack influencetheir respective accounts of writing. Segund o un dersta nds the genre of

14. Mack , A myth of innocence, 20.15 . Mack , A myth of innocence, 204-205.16 . For a summary o f Mack 's hypo thesis , see A myth of innocence, chap ter twelve, "Thegospel as m yth " , 315-24 .17 . Mack , A myth of innocence, 16 .18 . Mack, A myth of innocence, 262.19 . Mack, A myth of innocence, 3-9.



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I R V I N E A N T I C H R I S T O L O G IE S 317

t h e S y n o p t i c s to be t e s t i m o n i a l ; t h e y w i t n e s s to c o n f l i c t b e t w e e nre l ig ious ide o log ie s , a s s oc ia te d w i th c onc re te s oc ia l and po l i t i c a lposi t ions , over fa i thfulness in i n t e rp re t ing the v a l u e s of G o d . He d o e snot sharp ly d is t ingu ish the w o r l d in w h i c h the text was produc e d f romthe wor ld p re s e n te d in the text - wri t ing for him is pr ima r i ly mime t ic -a n d d e s c r i b e s his u n d e r s t a n d i n g as " r e a d i n g in a po l i t i c a l key".A c c o r d i n g l y , S e g u n d o i n t e r p r e t s the his to r ica l Jesus in the r o l e of a"re l ig io-poli t ica l" 2 0 ac tor in s oc ie ty . Ma c k ' s un de r s t a n d in g of h u m a n sa s p r o d u c e r s of t e x t s d e m o n s t r a t e s w h a t m i g h t be ca l led a " s o c i o -l i t e r a r y " key. T h r o u g h its g o s p e l , he c l ai m s , M a r k ' s c o m m u n i t yregenera ted i t se l f over aga ins t o ther in te rpre te rs of its founding f igure ,Jesus . The w o r l d as Ma rk ' s gos pe l p re s e n t s it is quite different from thew o r l d in whic h Ma rk ' s gos pe l was pro duc e d . Ma c k in te rp re t s the ro leof Jesu s as charac te r isa t ion in a principally poetic text .

TOWARDS RESPONSIBLE HISTORICAL INTERPRETATION:"ANTICHRISTOLOGIES"

T h e r e are s t rong d i f fe rences be tween the w o r k s of these in te rpre te rs ,bu t the re is also a s imi la r i ty of in ten t tha t a l lows exchange be tween thet w o . The socia l locat ions of S e g u n d o and M a c k are very different , yetthe i r p ro tes t aga ins t na ive and de s t ruc t ive re a d ings of J e s us me a ns tha ttheir socia l ac t ions as i n t e rp re te r s can be s om e w ha t c o -o rd ina te d . B o thp ro te s t by r e in te rp re t ing J e s us so t h a t he is a p p r o p r i a t e d to an " a n t i -chr is to logy" .2 1A p p r o p r i a t i o n , a c c o r d i n g to Ric oe u r , is the c o u n t e r p a r t to d i s t a n c ia t ion . In c o m p a r i n g the i n t e r p r e t i v e p r o c e s s to a d i a l o g u e , as thed i s t a nc ia t ion of a tex t poses someth ing l ike a que s t ion , an occasion fori n t e rp re ta t ion , to a r e a de r , so a p p r o p r i a t i o n c o r r e s p o n d s to a k i n d ofr e p ly , an e v e n t of se l f -a r t icu la t ion respons ive to the t e x t .2 2 A p p r o p r i a t ion is not a c h ie ve d by d e n y i n g the " s t r a n g e n e s s " of the tex t in itsd i s t a nc e , as t h o u g h it c o n f o r m s to the i n t e r p r e t e r ' s own contex t , butt h r o u g h w h a t H a n s - G e o r g G a d a m e r n a m e d a "fus ion of h o r i z o n s " .2 3Ricoeur exp la ins the defining feature of the fusion of hor iz ons :a pp rop r ia t ion c e a s e s to a p p e a r as a k ind of possess ion , as a w ay oftak ing ho ld of . . .. [sic] It imp l ie s in s te a d a m o m e n t of d i s pos s e s s ionof the narciss is t ic ego.... O n l y the in te rpre ta t ion which sa t i s f ies the20 . S e g u n d o , The historical Jesus of the synoptic gospels (Maryknol l , New York: OrbisBooks, 1985). See chap ter five, "Jesus and the pol i tica l dim ens ion" , 71-85.21. T h e w o r d is S e g u n d o ' s , The historical Jesus. It enti t les the second chapter , 13-21.22 . P a u l R i c o e u r , " A p p r o p r i a t i o n " , in Hermeneutics and the human sciences, 185. It

s h o u l d be clear that thi s apphes to all texts , not j us t t hose t ha t have the g r a m m a r of aques t i on . T h i s is wh y Ricoeur can say , in Interpretation theory, t h a t " h e r m e n e u t i c s b e g i n sw h e r e d i a l o g u e e n d s " (cited in Schneiders , The revelatory text, 143).23 . St rangeness : Schne ide r s , The revelatory text, 171; fus ion of h o r i z o n s : H a n s - G e o r gGad ame r , c i ted in Ricoeur, " App ropr i a t i on" , 191-2.



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injunction of the text, which follows the arrow of meaning andendeavours to "think in accordance with" it , engenders a new self-understanding. 24Of course, various interpretations of Jesus have alwa ys been advanced,mo stly claiming to be "in accordance w ith" the texts about Jesus and thevalu es of God. Yet som e interpreta tions legitimate violence, exploitation and deg rada tion, actions that seem inconsonant with mu ch of theN ew Testam ent testimony about Jesus, let alone this century's massivehistorical Jesus research.

Segundo: Discerning the TraditionThe facile religious appropriation of Jesus, "belief" which seems sona tura l, is the obstacle to recognising the stran gene ss of Jesus, Segu ndo

argues.25 From the stance of mere anthropological faith, what Jesusannounced w as nota call to some religious faith. Th e only way to arrive at [religiousfaith] is necessarily through the communication of one world ofmeaning and values to another similar world already existing insom e way in the listener. Tha t w orld of me aning a nd value s isw hat Jesus designates by the term "king dom of Go d". And i tsaffinity with a parallel world of values existing in some of hislisteners...is what permits him to say logically that the nearness ofthe kingd om constitutes good new s. It doe s not cease to be news,ho w ev er, simply bec ause of the affinity. Th e similari ty inexpec tations does not mea n that his listeners believe the kingdom tobe "near " or "at ha nd ". They mu st convert to that hope .26Thus Segundo argues that a fusion of horizons that maintains thestrangeness of the text (the call to faith is also a call to conversion) canbe effected in a genuinely religious tradition of witnesses "learning howto learn". The rel igious ideology of U rug uay 's pow er-holders, andother christologies including Segundo's "antichristology", are thus

submitted to suspicion both by the historical Jesus and by the traditionof faith in w hic h Jesus stan ds . N one can pre su m e to stand in thetradition of G od 's kingdom .Mack: Discrediting the Tradition

Mack is at least as radical as Seg und o as he tur ns suspicion up on thegosp el text. Th e earliest respon ses to Jesus he can identify lead him tobelieve Jesus was "a peasant with a sense for the precariousness ofexistence. H e assum ed a stance on the marg ins of society and simply24. Ricoeur , Appropriation, 192-3. T h e n ew se l f -u n d er s t an d in g , a s S eg u n d o an d M ackdem ons t ra te , is no t necessar i ly conform ed to a tex f s in junct ion .25. "In spite of himself, perhaps , Jesus o f Nazareth i s seen as the founder o f on e of there l ig ions aro un d today th at lays c la im to un iversal i ty ." Segu ndo , The historical Jesus, 23 .26. S e g u n d o , The historical Jesus, 7-8.



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I R V I N E A NTicHRiSTOLOGiES 319invited others to share his view."27 Mack also works in the reconstruction of Q. He suggests that within the very early communitywhich prod uced Q, "[i]n general it is clear that sympathies lie with thepoor , the least, the humble , the servant , and those consigned topositions without privilege, more than with their social opposites". 2 8'T h e crisp sayings of Jesus in Q 1 [the earliest edition ofQ] show that hisfollowers tho ug ht of him as a Cynic-like sag e", Mack decides.Having traced the development of the emergence of the myth ofJesus' innocence, Mack conc ludes of the early Jesus movements:The desire originally underlying the whole program was for socialreform, open borders, the presence of the new social spirit, theaffirmation of plural pasts, and invitational discou rse. [M ark's]apocalyptic solution to the future of the program meant that all ofthe original desires we re abro gated , sacrificed to the new desire forself-justification.29When Christians possess social power, as do many today, the legacy ofself-justification is frequently assu me d with ou t ques tion. Th e mythica linnocence of Jesus is misap propriated by powerful people perpe tratinginiquitous dee ds. They have found the world strange, or at least no t totheir liking. "U nw illing to join the human race, to settle for less thanthe kingdom of God", they take solace and justification from Mark'sJesus.30 But, prote sts Mack, the my th is the reason of our estrangement.He articulates the strangeness of the text, to diffuse its witness anddefuse any facile appropriation of it.The incisiveness of M ack's protest is borne out in Segundo's interpretat ion of the Synoptics. The "long, ugly history of Chris t ianat t i tudes and act ions toward Jews and Judaism", including "theanomaly of anti-Semitic at t i tudes that emerge throughout the thirdworld wherever the gospel is read today", is reflected in Segundo ' sdamning t reatment of the Pharisees and Sadducee s. Se gundo seemsunaware of the literariness of the port rayal of these groups in thegospels.31At the sam e time, how ever, Se gund o's generalisation of the gospels -as ideological pro duc ts rather th an as myths of origin - does enable aninterpreter to challenge the legitimacy of the kind of uses of Mark ' s

27 . Mack, A myth of innocence, 64.28 . B u r to n Mack , The lost Gospel: the book of Q and Christian origins (San F ran c i sco :Ha rpe r San Francisco, 1993) 112.29. Mack , A myth of innocence, 3 3 1 . See S e g u n d o , Faith and ideologies, 123-6. Thisp rob lem, po in ted ly re levan t to Chris t ians , as Mack s tark ly expounds, is not jus t a p r o b l e mfor Christ ians. For instance Marc Ell is , in a n u m b e r of essay s and o th e r w o rk s , has t r ied tor e in t e rp re t Jew ish H o lo cau s t t h eo lo g y w i th in the c o n t e x t of I s r ae l i r e sp o n ses to thePalestin ian intifada.30. Mack, A myth of innocence, 370.31. Mack , A myth of innocence, 3 7 5 ; S eg u n d o , The historical Jesus, 90-103. See Jo h n P.Meier, "The Bible as a so u rce for t h eo lo g y " in Proceedings of The C atholic Theological Societyof America Vol. 43 (Louisville: CTS A, 1988) 9-10.



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gospel which Mack feels compel him to absolutise the distanciation ofthe text . Se gu nd o does "learn to learn" , and consequently learnspositive lessons from Ch ristian tradition.CONCLUSION: SOME COMMON POINTS OF INTERPRETATION

Can there be an interpretat ion of Jesus that is both in accordancewith the texts and sufficiently open to enable Segundo and Mack toarticulate their concerns? The task is beyond the scope of this study butsome common elements of interpretation may be noted: the "religio-pol i t ical" nature of the conflict surrounding Jesus, according toSegundo, and the distinctive "religious seriousness" Mack attributes toJesus; Jesus' agitation of conflicts in society and willingness to "face theult imate consequences", compared with the early martyr traditions ofthe Hellenistic Christ cult (to which Mack gives gua rde d sym pathy); the"view from below" shaping Jesus ' loyalt ies and actions; Segundo'sassertion that Jesus rejected the expectation of signs from heaven anddirected people to the signs of the t imes, and Mack's suggestion that"[t]he Jesus people are bes t unders tood as those who noticed thechallenge of the times in Galilee".32We cannot not interpret Jesus. Who a person is in history includesw ho he or she is in the estimation of others. Early Christianity madeabundant tes t imony to that. And ever since, Christians have shapedtheir conduct by whom they imagined Jesus to have been. W hereChristians have acted badly, the tradition they maintain probably begsrenew al. Perh aps Jesus combined Cynic imp ude nce with prop heticaction. Coming from Galilee, it is not unlikely that Jes us' pub lic activitywas quite eclectic, if not syncretistic.33 The opinion of both interpreters,that Jesus did not hold apocalyptic expectations, seems too extreme.Whatever his relationship with John the Baptist, it is difficult to believeit was antithetical. But, extreme or not, the common concerns thatappear in Segundo's and M ack's writing suggest the issues and imagesthat are intelligible to different groups of people today. Perhaps, then,present day audiences in both North America and Latin America,struggling to come to terms with nascent world society, can begin tounders tand Jesus as a martyr . He may not have sought death, but asw h a t he understood to be the powers of convention and impiety closedaround him he determined to defy them and their claim to divinelegitimation to the end.

32 . Religio-poli t ical and re l igious ser iousness : S e g u n d o , The historical Jesus, 71-85, Mack,A myth of innocence, 7 4; a g i t a t o r / m a r t y r : S e g u n d o , The historical Jesus, 74-85, Mack, A mythof innocence, 98-123; v i e w f r o m b e l o w : S e g u n d o , The historical Jesus, see for e x a m p l e 91,Mack, The lost gospel, 111-112; signs: S e g u n d o , Faith and ideologies, 40-50, The historical Jesus,13 , 27, 85, Ma ck, The lost gospel, 120.33 . See Mack, A myth of innocence, 65-6.


Documents

1996 - Andrew Irvine - ‘Antichristologies’. A Comparison of Juan Luis Segundo and Burton Mack