Paul, the Corinthians and the Birth of Christian Hermeneutics (review)

To read this book is both a privilege and an education because it is to see a master of her craft do what she loves with a sure hand and a keen heart. In this volume, Mitchell pursues a clearly articulated agenda to develop and demonstrate "a new way of thinking about early Christian exegesis that takes the strategic and rhetorical quality of this interpretive work more seriously" (ix). Thus grounding interpretive work in its immediate agonistic situation and its larger rhetorical tradition, Mitchell turns away from the worn, unhelpful, misleading, but still taught labels of "allegorical" or "literal," and also builds up a viable alternative that carries a substantial historical payload. Mitchell reads the corpus of letters represented in the canonical books of 1 and 2 Corinthians within what she terms the "agonistic paradigm of interpretation," giving full weight to the function of the letters in dealing with persistent contrariness, misunderstandings, and questioning of Paul's authority. On the basis of such sound methodological engineering, Mitchell is able to trace out the ways that Paul connects interpretation to questions of leadership, his own role, and the obligations of the Christian.

These letters show Paul struggling to interpret and re-interpret himself in the face of competing interpretations, or misinterpretations, put forward by his original audience. The variability and energy of this effort is characterized by Mitchell as typical for later Christian hermeneutics, which also navigate strategically between poles of the clear and the unclear, the testimonial or the mysterious. It is this ad hoc, contingent, and agonistic process of argument that Mitchell sees at the root of early Christian hermeneutical projects. In her own words, "Proper understanding of the rhetorical techniques involved in ancient exegesis counsels appropriate caution about prematurely systematizing from any single moment of interpretation and the rationale given there. . . . All early Christian exegesis is strategic and adaptable. . . . The goal of ancient biblical interpretation was utility to the purpose at hand, however contextually defined. And this began with Paul" (x). Due to conflicts, contestation, and confusion in this relationship, Paul deploys "a range of hermeneutical justifications for the proofs and evidence he summoned in support of particular points he wished to make in this succession of missives" (10). Mitchell thus sees Paul as arguing about "the meaning of words, episodes and relationships" and as using discussion of hermeneutical principles persuasively towards this end.

Throughout the book, Mitchell develops the idea of the Christian practice not of commenting on scriptural texts, but rather of commenting with them. This is demonstrated by means of an examination of the reception of Paul's debates with the Corinthians in Gregory of Nyssa's Commentary on the Song of Songs, which is skillfully worked through each chapter. Gregory cites the Corinthian epistolary corpus as evidence for his opinion on what constitutes adequate interpretation, and he builds on Pauline hermeneutical techniques. That is, the Corinthian letters are not the object, but rather the medium of commentary in this case. And this is what is meant by emphasizing how early Christian commentators continue to comment with, rather than on, Scripture: meaning construed as belonging to the text is a tool with which one can address or argue about other religious issues, and indeed the issues at which Paul directs his agonistic hermeneutics (authority, personhood, the obligations of the individual Christian) continue to be problems at which commentary is directed.

There are three main points argued for in this volume. The first is to establish that "in the Corinthian correspondence we have a dynamic process of negotiated meaning between Paul and the Corinthians, through the series of letters interpreting and re-interpreting what is written, stated and visually presented." (106). Second, Mitchell demonstrates that "once published the Corinthian correspondence was to provide patristic exegesis with a treasure house of equipment for their own agonistic tasks involving scriptural interpretation" (107). Third, Mitchell has continued "the work of complicating the map of patristic exegesis . . . by demonstrating that exegetes at...