In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

8 History and Holy Scripture in Hans Frei Frei’s theological account of history requires a theology of Scripture, and he supplies one, or at least the outline of one. Despite being criticized for not being theological enough about Scripture, for prioritizing theories of narrative or the church as a social entity over a dogmatic account of the Bible, his central concerns with the identity and presence of Jesus Christ led him to say enough about Scripture to indicate a truly theological account of its nature. This account, taken as a whole, in turn makes sense of his understanding of what he calls the literal sense of the synoptic Gospels and of the scriptural canon constituted as a whole in relation to them. Most importantly for my purposes, it is an account that, taken with his theology of history, points the way to a theology of Scripture that can address the issues raised by historical consciousness. Historical consciousness makes it difficult to think of God intervening in the world, so that (1) thinking of Scripture as an instrument or vessel of divine action or presence becomes problematic, (2) the world of the text is distanced from historical reconstructions of the past it attests and from the world of the reader, (3) its normative function in Christian community becomes hard to sustain imaginatively or intellectually, and (4) it in turn becomes subject to ethical scrutiny as a diverse set of historically conditioned documents set against a larger history of human values. For all that his theology of Scripture is not as developed as it might be, the value of Frei for the contemporary pursuit of the theology and theological interpretation of Scripture lies in his capacity to help us with these questions. Faith Seeking Understanding, the Identity of Jesus, and the Theology of Scripture It is easy to read Frei’s early or later work and conclude that his accounts of realistic narrative, or later, of Christian reading practices, because of their 231 prominence, are meant to warrant the way he reads biblical texts. Such a conclusion would be unfair, however. In his earlier work, Frei turns to the Gospels as texts authoritative for Christian faith on grounds that Christians hold Christ to be present thereby, in some way. His analysis of Christ’s identity is intended to clarify that notion of presence, and so the procedure can be described as one of faith seeking understanding. In his later work, the same procedure is there, only it is more explicit and thoroughgoing: the meaning as well as the truth of Christian narrative turns on the way Christians have believed Christ to be present in relation to these texts. As we have seen, Frei selected the Gospels in the essays that became the material for The Identity of Jesus Christ because of their centrality to Christian belief, and indeed the passages that bear most weight in his analysis, the passion and resurrection sequences, have been of particular importance to the practice and expression of Christian faith through the varied history of Christian traditions. This reason for his choice belongs very much to the mode in which Frei believed theology should be done. At first glance, Frei seems to locate his analysis in The Identity of Jesus Christ outside dogmatic theology. He will not, he tells us in the Introduction, use faith as a convenient assumption and expand its implications for Christians by reasoning from their faith in Christ’s presence.1 What he means by this denial is that he will not be simply “unfolding” Christian beliefs as expressed in dogma, perhaps by deduction or inference from dogmatic propositions.2 Nevertheless, he adds that what he will write “constitutes a reflection within belief.”3 He will explore one order for thinking about the component parts of belief in Christ’s presence: namely that it matters—not least for the interpretation of the gospel—that we think about Christ’s presence in light of his identity because the reverse procedure leads us away from both Christ and his presence. This exercise, for the believer, is “a pleasurable exercise in . . . ordering his thinking about his faith and—in a certain sense—a praise of God by the use of his analytical capacities.”4 In this context of reflection within faith, it is entirely natural for Frei to announce that he will turn to the New Testament in order to examine the identity of Jesus.5 Of similar import is Frei’s comment in his...

Share