Ritröð Guðfræðistofnunar - 01.09.1998, Síða 182

Jón Ma. Asgeirsson
word in the biblical tradition over against the written word. Indeed, a tradition
that characterizes the entire church history to the present date.61 That this
tradition has influenced contemporary New Testament scholarship is evident
and exemplified in the works of Bultmann and the role he attributes to the
proclamation of Paul over other traditions in the New Testament as noted
above.62 The Pauline tradition frequently appeals to hearing of the apostle’s
preaching, as well as to his claim of authentic apostleship—on the basis of
self claimed revelation from his lord. Had Bultmann been interested in a closer
look at the Jesus tradition inside and outside of the canonical New Testament,
he would have had to observe that also this tradition consisting primarily of
speeches, discourses, parables and aphorisms is formally characterized by the
spoken word. As a matter of fact, an audience is frequently mentioned as part
of the setting of these sayings. Surely, Bultmann was fully aware of such
characteristics as form critical approaches to the New Testament literature had
revealed. His motivation for going with Paul is due, on the other hand, to the
representation of Jesus that he offers so different from that of the Jesus
tradition and which would appear to have a more direct appeal to existentialist
interpretations of man and death.
But if the Jesus tradition just as well as the Pauline tradition can be
characterized by the elements of speech and, indeed, speech over writing, have
they not fallen subject to the same suspicion about the relationship between
speech and writing that is so crucial in Derrida’s criticisms of this phenomenon
in (western) culture?63 Or is Seeley correct in adopting a modified Derrida in
terms of his deconstructive agenda? For Seeley, Derrida’s deconstructive
move offers an improved “understanding of our histories, our cultures, and
ourselves” but he refuses to follow Derrida all the way to where such improve-
ments may take you to “a world as yet unimagined.”64
The (intentional) destruction of the approach Derrida aims at does, indeed,
61 Ibid., 8-13.
62 Also noted by Seeley, ibid., 13-15.
63 Vide his, “Plato’s Pharmacy,” in idem, Dissemination, Translated, with an Introduction and
Additional Notes by B. Johnson (Chicago. 1L: The University of Chicago Press, 1981)
61-171, passim. For a detailed discussion of this work, vide Jasper Neel, Plato, Derrida,
and Writing (Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 1988; idem, “The Degra-
dation of Rhetoric; or Dressing like a Gentleman, Speaking like a Scholar,” in Steven
Mailloux, ed., Rhetoric, Sophistry, Pragmatism, Literature, Culture, Theory 15
(Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press, 1995) 61-81.
64 Op. cit, 1994, 19. Says Seeley, “That [deconstructive] effort, if conducted with sobriety
and a proper sense of balance, in itself fosters an awareness of how fragile and problematic
is human life, as well as how precious,” loc. cit.
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