Sunday, August 05, 2018
Why Does A World "at once concretely physical and vibrantly spiritual" Necessarily Imply Eschatological Ascent?
I finally just yesterday got around to reading David Bentley Hart's response to N.T. Wright's critique of his translation of the New Testament. FOUND HERE. Here is my response.
1. When Hart was a dick to the Yankees and America, I kind of enjoyed it but thought: "Man, he's being kind of a dick to Yankees fans, though possibly in fun jest." I did kind of turn me off to his message to some degree, but only insofar as it kept me from gushing too much. Now, as a fan of N.T. Wright, I don't really like it. Maybe this says something about me, lol.
2. It's funny. I didn't have time to read the whole thing when it came out months ago. Also, I would have to subscribe to read the entirety of Wright’s piece to which Hart was responding. I read about the argument a bit from multiple other sources and from Brian Zahnd. I do enjoy Hart's translation, maybe even more than Wright's. On the basic question of how to go about translating the text, I think I'd rather read Hart. Which is not to say that Wright doesn’t seem to have a point. I can see both sides. I just suspect that demanding one answer to the question of which way to approach translation is to needlessly reach and grasp (see below). Both arguments, taken together, frame for us a picture, particularly in a way that neither argument does solely or separately. I'm thankful for both scholars.
So, I also kind of see this as a bit of a fruitless argument where they're actually saying something quite similar but arguing over minutia. I think they agree on so much. Perhaps a case of academics splitting hairs into finer and finer particles as an act of self-affirmation. Which is not to say that they don't have any substantial disagreement here (see below).
3. I know from reading Hart's piece that he's being somewhat ungenerous in his reading of Wright, which makes me further suspicious of the argument and seems to support my "splitting minutia hairs" point. Example: "Worse still, Wright follows a deeply misguided tradition of translation in imposing an opposition between 'natural' and (one must suppose) 'supernatural' on the text; that too, as I have said, is anachronistic." Wright himself objects to such an opposition repeatedly throughout various of his writings. So, like I said, not charitable.
I really like how Hart paints a picture of a world that includes or is filled with "shining hierarchies of spirits and powers and morally ambiguous angels and demi-angelic nefilim,” where spirit, soul and flesh are not (over-simply) “etherealized or moralized,” where the “heavenly and earthly” are categorized and classified differently but not divided and separated, and where the “world” or “cosmos” is “at once concretely physical and vibrantly spiritual.” This is pretty basic to Jason the mystic who is an exile in modern frameworks.
But then Hart goes onto rail against the translation of “flesh” as “sinful nature.” Wright purposefully avoids “sinful nature” in his writings. I doubt Hart misses that, so I guess that goes back to Hart’s opening point that Wright is here serving as an emblem of a larger problem. But, my point is, I suspect that might be a bit unfair to Wright in general. Because I don’t think Wright would object to the way Hart paints the ancient world noted in the above paragraph (see, for example, the previous point about the “natural” and “supernatural).
4. On the other hand, there is a substantial disagreement over more than just how to go about translating ancient texts (particularly the scriptures).
I do still agree that the “flesh” is “bad,” and I read it as such throughout the NT. But, I only read it that way insofar as it belongs to that which is temporary and passing away (how the ancients thought of that which is “earthly”, per Hart’s point). Partially for that very reason, it tends towards intemperance. In its extreme sensitivity (imagine surgery with no anesthetic), it is easily swayed. In that sense, I agree that it is “bad.”
In a sense, though, I do still side with Wright on the resurrection. I do still read the term “flesh” “as a lexical synecdoche for some larger conceptual construct like ‘the mortal life in the flesh, stained with sin and lying under divine judgment.’” If “flesh” “can form only a body of death,” then what happened to Christ’s "fleshly" BODY in the tomb if what Mary “embraced” was supposedly purely a spiritual “simplex”?
Did it just vaporize? Disappear into thin air? Did it simply no longer exist, as an appropriate state of things in light of the fulfillment of true existence embodied in the One who governs existence outside the empty tomb? I suppose that would be fitting if that’s the telos of "flesh." To me, though - because this implies "ascent" as the end of the story, as Hart explicitly makes clear in this piece - that doesn’t fit the rest of the scriptural narrative.
Hart mentioned that “flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom,” but he failed to mention that where a similar idea occurs in the beginning of Romans 8, it’s in reference to Jewish self-identity (and thus to the point of unity in the church, in and because of the One true God of Israel). Hart also failed to mention that, where this disinheritance of the flesh is stated directly in 1 Corinthians 15, it is immediately followed up with and I think qualified by “we are transformed” (metamorphosis), as well as by the perishable and mortal “putting on” “in a moment” the imperishable and immortal. That would seem to tell the tale of what happened to Christ’s BODY, of what it was that Jesus told Mary not to embrace.
The beginning of the scriptural narrative affirms all of creation as GOOD. And, the end of the story is the mysterious union of heaven and earth, affirmed by both the end of Revelation and, per Wright, 1 Thes. 4: 13-18. As far as I can tell, this would mean that, in the end, God is “all in all” and "flesh" is redeemed. For Wright, Moses coming down off the Mountain of God, the heavenly city descending and God becoming the God of His people, and the victorious King returning to a previously planted colony are all re-enactments of the same image.
The sensitivity and responsiveness of flesh bends its path towards that which is passing away. But, I also take that to be a sign of life, though obviously that is not to say that the flesh is the source of life (part of Hart’s point is that Genesis 2:7 could also be read as “spirit” just as well as “breath”, I think). I tend to imagine the autism spectrum as being defined by an over-sensitivity to life to such a degree that well-ordered functioning becomes near impossible in our particularly speedy society marked by an overwhelming onslaught of alarms, lights, bells, neon signs, whistles, flashing signals, horns, and blinding reflections.
5. I think Hart is emblematic here of the tendency for academics to telescope complex questions into simple certainties, to over-reach for answers. That very same section of 1 Corinthians 15 says directly: “I will tell you a mystery.”
6. I wonder if DBH's bent here reflects his Eastern Orthodoxy? It makes me want to look more into that.
1. When Hart was a dick to the Yankees and America, I kind of enjoyed it but thought: "Man, he's being kind of a dick to Yankees fans, though possibly in fun jest." I did kind of turn me off to his message to some degree, but only insofar as it kept me from gushing too much. Now, as a fan of N.T. Wright, I don't really like it. Maybe this says something about me, lol.
2. It's funny. I didn't have time to read the whole thing when it came out months ago. Also, I would have to subscribe to read the entirety of Wright’s piece to which Hart was responding. I read about the argument a bit from multiple other sources and from Brian Zahnd. I do enjoy Hart's translation, maybe even more than Wright's. On the basic question of how to go about translating the text, I think I'd rather read Hart. Which is not to say that Wright doesn’t seem to have a point. I can see both sides. I just suspect that demanding one answer to the question of which way to approach translation is to needlessly reach and grasp (see below). Both arguments, taken together, frame for us a picture, particularly in a way that neither argument does solely or separately. I'm thankful for both scholars.
So, I also kind of see this as a bit of a fruitless argument where they're actually saying something quite similar but arguing over minutia. I think they agree on so much. Perhaps a case of academics splitting hairs into finer and finer particles as an act of self-affirmation. Which is not to say that they don't have any substantial disagreement here (see below).
3. I know from reading Hart's piece that he's being somewhat ungenerous in his reading of Wright, which makes me further suspicious of the argument and seems to support my "splitting minutia hairs" point. Example: "Worse still, Wright follows a deeply misguided tradition of translation in imposing an opposition between 'natural' and (one must suppose) 'supernatural' on the text; that too, as I have said, is anachronistic." Wright himself objects to such an opposition repeatedly throughout various of his writings. So, like I said, not charitable.
I really like how Hart paints a picture of a world that includes or is filled with "shining hierarchies of spirits and powers and morally ambiguous angels and demi-angelic nefilim,” where spirit, soul and flesh are not (over-simply) “etherealized or moralized,” where the “heavenly and earthly” are categorized and classified differently but not divided and separated, and where the “world” or “cosmos” is “at once concretely physical and vibrantly spiritual.” This is pretty basic to Jason the mystic who is an exile in modern frameworks.
But then Hart goes onto rail against the translation of “flesh” as “sinful nature.” Wright purposefully avoids “sinful nature” in his writings. I doubt Hart misses that, so I guess that goes back to Hart’s opening point that Wright is here serving as an emblem of a larger problem. But, my point is, I suspect that might be a bit unfair to Wright in general. Because I don’t think Wright would object to the way Hart paints the ancient world noted in the above paragraph (see, for example, the previous point about the “natural” and “supernatural).
4. On the other hand, there is a substantial disagreement over more than just how to go about translating ancient texts (particularly the scriptures).
I do still agree that the “flesh” is “bad,” and I read it as such throughout the NT. But, I only read it that way insofar as it belongs to that which is temporary and passing away (how the ancients thought of that which is “earthly”, per Hart’s point). Partially for that very reason, it tends towards intemperance. In its extreme sensitivity (imagine surgery with no anesthetic), it is easily swayed. In that sense, I agree that it is “bad.”
In a sense, though, I do still side with Wright on the resurrection. I do still read the term “flesh” “as a lexical synecdoche for some larger conceptual construct like ‘the mortal life in the flesh, stained with sin and lying under divine judgment.’” If “flesh” “can form only a body of death,” then what happened to Christ’s "fleshly" BODY in the tomb if what Mary “embraced” was supposedly purely a spiritual “simplex”?
Did it just vaporize? Disappear into thin air? Did it simply no longer exist, as an appropriate state of things in light of the fulfillment of true existence embodied in the One who governs existence outside the empty tomb? I suppose that would be fitting if that’s the telos of "flesh." To me, though - because this implies "ascent" as the end of the story, as Hart explicitly makes clear in this piece - that doesn’t fit the rest of the scriptural narrative.
Hart mentioned that “flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom,” but he failed to mention that where a similar idea occurs in the beginning of Romans 8, it’s in reference to Jewish self-identity (and thus to the point of unity in the church, in and because of the One true God of Israel). Hart also failed to mention that, where this disinheritance of the flesh is stated directly in 1 Corinthians 15, it is immediately followed up with and I think qualified by “we are transformed” (metamorphosis), as well as by the perishable and mortal “putting on” “in a moment” the imperishable and immortal. That would seem to tell the tale of what happened to Christ’s BODY, of what it was that Jesus told Mary not to embrace.
The sensitivity and responsiveness of flesh bends its path towards that which is passing away. But, I also take that to be a sign of life, though obviously that is not to say that the flesh is the source of life (part of Hart’s point is that Genesis 2:7 could also be read as “spirit” just as well as “breath”, I think). I tend to imagine the autism spectrum as being defined by an over-sensitivity to life to such a degree that well-ordered functioning becomes near impossible in our particularly speedy society marked by an overwhelming onslaught of alarms, lights, bells, neon signs, whistles, flashing signals, horns, and blinding reflections.
5. I think Hart is emblematic here of the tendency for academics to telescope complex questions into simple certainties, to over-reach for answers. That very same section of 1 Corinthians 15 says directly: “I will tell you a mystery.”
6. I wonder if DBH's bent here reflects his Eastern Orthodoxy? It makes me want to look more into that.
Subscribe to Posts [Atom]
