Whatever else Christian theology is, it is an exercise in literary criticism. That is, to be a theologian is to take revelation seriously and taking revelation seriously means understanding that God has revealed himself in the Scriptures. To understand those Scriptures, then, one needs to pay attention to form, to genre, to plot, to figures of speech, and all the rest. And of course knowledge of history and philosophy and archeology among a host of relevant disciplines can and should be brought to bear on interpreting those Scriptures.
This is all a roundabout way of introducing two excellent literary critics: Terry Eagleton and Friedrich Nietzsche. If you haven’t read Eagleton’s article in the most recent Commonweal, go and do that now. What I write here is intended to be a codicil to Eagleton’s piece. * I’ve just finished teaching Nietzsche’s Anti-Christ, and as usual, the students were in turn angered, surprised, and bewildered. And that anger, surprise, and bewilderment came from Nietzsche’s interpretations of the Gospels, from, we might say, his literary criticism.
Read Full Article »