Readings in the Canon of Scripture: Written for Our Learning

181 Pages·1995·10.96 MB·English

by  David Jasper

Readings in the Canon
of Scripture
Written for our Learning
David Jasper
Readings in the
Canon of Scripture
Written for our Learning
David Jasper
Director, Centre for the Study of Literature and Theology
University of Glasgow
M
St. Martin's Press
© David Jasper 1995
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First published in Great Britain 1995 by
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from the British Library.
ISBN 0-333-59307-3
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 21
04 03 02 01 00 99 98 97 96 95
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First published in the United States of America 1995 by
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ISBN 0-312-12687-5
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Jasper, David.
Readings in the canon of Scripture : written for our learning /
David Jasper,
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-312-12687-5
1. Bible—Criticism, interpretation, etc. 2. Bible—Canon.
3. Bible—Hermeneutics. 4. Bible—Criticism, interpretation, etc-
-History—20th century. 5. Bible—In literature. 6. Bible—Art.
I. Title.
BS511.2.J37 1995
220.6—dc20 95-5576
CIP
READINGS IN THE CANON OF SCRIPTURE
STUDIES IN LITERATURE AND RELIGION
General Editor: David Jasper, Director of the Centre for the Study of
Literature and Theology, University of Glasgow
Studies in Literature and Religion is a series of interdisciplinary titles, both
monographs and essays, concerned with matters of literature, art and
textuality within religious traditions founded upon texts and textual
study. In a variety of ways they are concerned with the fundamental
issues of the imagination, literary perceptions and theory, and an
understanding of poetics for theology and religious studies.
Published titles include:
David Scott Arnold
LIMINAL READINGS
Forms of Otherness in Melville, Joyce and Murdoch
John D. Barbour
THE CONSCIENCE OF THE AUTOBIOGRAPHER
Ethical and Religious Dimensions of Autobiography
Tibor Fabiny
THE LION AND THE LAMB
Figuralism and Fulfilment in the Bible, Art and Literature
Max Harris
THEATRE AND INCARNATION
David Jasper {editor)
POSTMODERNISM, LITERATURE AND THE
FUTURE OF THEOLOGY
TRANSLATING RELIGIOUS TEXTS
Ann Loades and Michael McLain {editors)
HERMENEUTICS, THE BIBLE AND LITERARY CRITICISM
Irena S. M. Makarushka
RELIGIOUS IMAGINATION AND
LANGUAGE IN EMERSON AND NIETZSCHE
Linda Munk
THE TRIVIAL SUBLIME
George Pattison
KIERKEGAARD: THE AESTHETIC AND THE RELIGIOUS
In memory of my father
R. C D. Jasper
Blessed Lord, who hast caused all Holy Scriptures to be
written for our learning: Grant that we may in such wise
hear them, read, mark, learn and inwardly digest them, that
by patience, and comfort of thy Holy Word, we may em
brace, and ever holdfast the blessed hope of everlasting life,
which thou hast given us in our Saviour Jesus Christ.
Collect for the Second Sunday in Advent,
Book of Common Prayer
which is that inestimable treasure, which excelleth all the
riches of the earth.
King James Bible
It is an incendiary device: who knows what we'd make of it,
if we ever got our hands on it? We can be read to from it,
by him, but we cannot read.
Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid's Tale
Contents
List of Plates viii
Acknowledgements ix
rre/ace XI
1 Introduction: Violence and the Canon 1
2 Trespassing in the Wilderness: New Ventures in
Canonical Criticism 14
3 The Literary Classic and the Tragedy of Fiction 28
4 Seeing Pictures: Reading Texts 48
5 The Bible and the Politics of Feminism 68
6 Living in the Reel World: The Bible in Film 83
7 Violence and Postmodernism: Is There No Hope in
the Evil Demon of Images? 96
8 Apocalypse Then and Now 106
9 A Rebirth of Images 122
0 Conclusion: Art and the Biblical Canon 132
Bibliography 148
Index 150
Vll
List of Plates
1 Caravaggio (1573-1610) (attrib.), Doubting Thomas (Neues Palais,
Potsdam).
2 Rembrandt (1606-1669), Bathsheba (1654) (Louvre, Paris).
3 Rembrandt, Abraham and Isaac (1635) (The Hermitage, St
Petersburg; The Mansell Collection).
4 Rembrandt, The Risen Christ Appearing to the Magdalene (1638)
(Her Majesty the Queen).
5 Gustav Klimt (1862-1918), The Kiss (1907-8) (Osterreichische
Galerie, Vienna).
viii
Acknowledgements
This book is part of an on-going project which includes my two
previous books, The Study of Literature and Religion: An Introduction
and Rhetoric, Power and Community. I am not quite sure when or
how the project began, and I am even less sure when or how it will
end. Its themes, or perhaps obsessions, are the Bible and how it is
read, an ever-expanding sense of the complex interaction between
the Bible and the art and literature of the West, and the notion of
"postmodernity" as a sense of the bewilderment of our times. The
subject of violence was everywhere present in my last book, and
continues here, since I believe it is imperative, as we sit in our
comfortable offices or padded pews, that we recognize the implica
tions of what we are doing as we read and interpret (or pontificate),
or of what is being done to us as inheritors of a tradition of reading
and interpretation.
Some reviewers of Rhetoric, Power and Community expressed
uncertainty about the position I was purporting to adopt vis-a-vis
religious communities, or indeed religious belief itself. I had, and
have, no answer to give. I write here, I should make it plain from
the outset, against the specific background of my experience of the
Christian Church, not through any sense of denial of a larger reli
gious vision, but as part of a personal, and therefore inevitably
partial, journey. Sometimes one must travel a long way, unburden
ing oneself of clutter and learning to recognize new signs and
directions before one dares articulate anything at all, and maybe
one is obliged to admit that the lights are dimmer than one had
hoped. Still, I hope, at least, to try and take certain voices and
certain insights seriously, lest in failing to do so one renders oneself
deaf and blind to the genuine suffering of those excluded, or felt to
be excluded, from the celebration which, in the end, lies at the heart
of what I am trying to say. Further than that I cannot go.
Many friends will perceive themselves in these chapters, and recall
conversations which have found their way into the book: Robert
Detweiler, Mark Ledbetter, Stephen Prickett, Irena Makarushka,
David Klemm, Werner Jeanrond. Others are too numerous to men
tion, but my thanks are heartfelt all the same,
ix