Salvation By Allegiance Alone 4

さて前回、シリーズ3回目、はマイク・バードのSBAA著者インタヴュー全3回についでした。

今回はアンドリュー・ペリマンの書評記事（全5回）について書きます。
Salvation By Allegiance Alone (1): a review on the basis of the Introduction alone
Salvation By Allegiance Alone (2): Paul’s gospel and the sweeping plains of history
Salvation By Allegiance Alone (3): pre-existence and the gospel of Jesus
Salvation By Allegiance Alone (4): the best bit so far
Salvation By Allegiance Alone (5): the exegetical evidence for faith as allegiance

第1回目書評の冒頭部分です。

Matthew Bates’ book Salvation By Allegiance Alone is further evidence that evangelicalism is wrestling honestly and constructively with the biblical, theological and practical deficiencies of the traditional understanding of gospel, faith and salvation.

1. The true climax of the gospel is the enthronement of Jesus, but this has generally been “deemphasized or omitted”.
2. Pistis has traditionally been misconstrued as “faith”—typically in the saving power of Jesus’ death. It should be understood instead as allegiance.
3. Final salvation consists not in going to heaven but in participation in the new creation. Once this “true goal” has been recognised, terms such as “faith”, “works”, “righteousness” and “gospel” can be reframed.

と云う風に「まずは」全体として、ベイツの論及を好意的に受け止め歓迎しています。

しかし第2回以降「批判的」書評としてより深く分析して行くとごとに、さまざまな指摘がなされており、「結構よく読んで本の内容に切り込んでいるな」という印象を与えます。その分なかなか書評でも読み応えがあります。


ペリマンのブログを読んでいる人にはすぐ分かると思いますが、彼はライトの「新約聖書神学」研究アプローチをかなりな部分受け入れていますが、新約聖書ナラティブのフレームワークを「徹底して歴史的に」取り組んでいない分中途半端、と批判しています。

そのような見解の持ち主ですから、やはりベイツの取組みに対しても同様の視点から結構容赦なくダメ出しをしています。

たとえばベイツは「伝統的な福音理解、信仰理解」を修正することに熱心なあまり、新約聖書ナラティブ・フレームワークが持つ「歴史的性格」を見過ごし、コスミックなナラティブ理解の方に引っ張られている、と指摘しています。

But it seems to me that his concern to provide a workable alternative to the traditional evangelical paradigm has led him to overlook the properly historical orientation of the New Testament narrative.

Bates is trying to read the New Testament at a cosmic level, guided by theological interests, whereas I think it needs to be read at a political level, from a more rigorously historical perspective.

また、たとえば「私たちの罪のために」の部分ペリマンは歴史的に取れば、それは「すべての人のため」ではなく第一義的には「ユダヤ人のため」であった、とベイツの解釈を退けます。

I would also quibble over the casual assumption that according to the Gospel story Jesus died for our sins. I agree that when Jesus says that he has come to give his life as a ransom for many, “the substitutionary idea is foregrounded” (61), but I would argue that the redemptive logic only works in the Jewish narrative.

The claim made by the Synoptic Gospels is that Jesus died for the sins of Israel, and I would go so far as to suggest that when Paul says that “Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures” (1 Cor. 15:3), he is speaking as a Jew, on behalf of Israel. The apocalyptic-kingdom narrative uses a different logic to explain the significance of Jesus’ death for Gentiles.

また「ピスティス」の中心的ニュアンスは「アリージャンス」だというベイツの命題に対しても、個々のパッセージでは従来のような「信仰（ビリーフ）」の方が相応しい箇所も結構あったりするので、全体の解釈フレームワークとして「アリージャンス」の中心性を主張するのはオーケーだが、「ピスティス」に対してそのような厳密さを求めるのは相応しくないと見ています。（以下の引用は日本語で説明した内容をはるかに越えます。念のため。）

This is a critical but enthusiastic review specifically from a narrative-historical perspective. I would not normally devote so much space to one book, but I’ve enjoyed my engagement with Bates’ thesis. I think that he has missed the real narrative context for the faith terminology, I have serious doubts about his attempts to tie the kingdom narrative to the pre-existence of Jesus, and I’m not persuaded that “allegiance” really identifies what Paul meant by pistis, as will become apparent from what follows. But the book nevertheless is a solid and passionate demonstration of the potential that current New Testament scholarship has to recalibrate evangelical conviction.

Basically, Bates argues that “saving allegiance” includes three dimensions: “mental affirmation that the gospel is true, professed fealty to Jesus alone as the cosmic Lord, and enacted loyalty through obedience to Jesus as the king” (92).
The distinctions are important, but it is apparent that the word “allegiance” really only applies to the third of these dimensions. So why make it the overarching category?

The translation of pistis as “allegiance” is a useful polemical and pedagogic device. It shoves justification-by-faith off its pedestal. It makes us think about gospel and faith in the frame of an eschatological narrative about Jesus and Israel in relation to the nations.

以上、本当にさわりみたいなコメントしか載せていませんので、できればしっかり読んでいただくと、ちゃんと自分の「神学的解釈基盤」をもって他者の著書を批判的に書評することの「実益」を披露していると思います。


（次回に続く）