APPROPRIATING APOCALYPTIC: PAUL RICOEUR’S HERMENEUTICS AND THE DISCOURSE OF MARK 13 by Peter C. de Vries BA, Pennsylvania State University, 1985 MDiv, Princeton Theological Seminary, 1988 Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the School of Arts and Sciences in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Pittsburgh 2010 UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH FACULTY OF ARTS AND SCIENCES This dissertation was presented by Peter C. de Vries It was defended on April 2, 2010 and approved by Dale Allison, Professor, Pittsburgh Theological Seminary Alexander Orbach, Associate Professor, Religious Studies Adam Shear, Associate Professor, Religious Studies George Taylor, Professor, School of Law Dissertation Advisor: S. Anthony (Tony) Edwards, Associate Professor, Religious Studies ii Copyright © by Peter C. de Vries 2010 iii APPROPRIATING APOCALYPTIC: PAUL RICOEUR’S HERMENEUTICS AND THE DISCOURSE OF MARK 13 Peter C. de Vries, PhD University of Pittsburgh, 2010 Mark 13 predicts that certain events will occur literally within the generation of Jesus’ contemporaries, and today’s reader recognizes that some of these events have not taken place. The reader therefore appropriates the text as a false configuration of the world because it describes the world differently from how it is. However, the hermeneutics of Paul Ricoeur enables a reader to appropriate the text as a presentation of truth. His argument for textual autonomy supports the contention that a text’s meaning is not limited to what the author intended and the original readers perceived. In new reading contexts, the meaning that comes from the text itself creates an evocative dialectic between the reader’s lived world and the world description of the text. Although Mark 13 was originally understood literally, today’s audience is able to read it as metaphor. Metaphor is not a rhetorically attractive literary trope; it is a transgression of language codes and categories. Through its association of previously unrelated concepts, metaphor creates new, multiple meanings and changes the linguistic structures within which it operates. Metaphor is able to present truth, not as a verifiable presentation of the world as it is perceived by the reader, but as a manifestation of the world in a new way. The reader recognizes this truth only as she is willing to engage with the text without imposing her preconceptions upon it. Mark 13, as it is read by today’s reader, functions as metaphor because of the double dissonance first between the configured world of the text and the lived world of the reader and second between claim that Jesus is able to predict when the events will take place (v. iv 30) and the assertion that he is not able to do so (v. 32). One option for today’s reader to appropriate the metaphor of Mark 13 as truth is a perception of the presence in the world of forces that challenge and subvert powers which appear to be dominant, and which deceive, destroy, and persecute. v TABLE OF CONTENTS PREFACE .................................................................................................................................... XI 1.0 INTRODUCTION: RESOLUTION OF A HERMENEUTICAL PROBLEM ...... 1 1.1 THE PRIMARY HERMENEUTICAL PROBLEM OF MARK 13 ............... 6 1.2 PREVIOUS ATTEMPTS TO RESOLVE THE PROBLEM .......................... 8 1.2.1 Theories for Literal Meaning of Mark 13 ..................................................... 9 1.2.2 Theories for Figurative Meaning of Mark 13 ............................................. 11 1.2.2.1 A New World Pattern ......................................................................... 12 1.2.2.2 Partial Fulfillment ............................................................................... 15 1.2.2.3 Personal or Spiritual Transformation............................................... 17 1.3 OUTLINE OF A RICOEUR-ORIENTED RESOLUTION .......................... 21 1.3.1 The Possibility for New Appropriation ....................................................... 23 1.3.2 Mark 13’s Literal Predictions When Written ............................................. 23 1.3.3 Events Did Not Occur When Predicted ....................................................... 24 1.3.4 Originally Apparent Meaning Is Recognized Today Not to Be True ....... 26 1.3.5 Appropriable Today Only as a False Text .................................................. 26 1.3.6 Appropriation Is Possible for Meaning Other Than That Apparent When Written ........................................................................................................................ 27 1.3.7 Textual Meaning Not Limited to Meaning When Written ........................ 27 vi 1.3.8 Metaphorical Meaning .................................................................................. 28 1.3.9 Truth in Metaphor......................................................................................... 29 1.3.10 Mark 13 As Metaphor .................................................................................. 30 1.3.11 Different Meaning Today from When Mark Was Written ...................... 32 1.3.12 Potential Truth for Mark 13’s Metaphorical Meaning............................. 33 1.3.13 Potential Truth of Mark 13’s Meaning Today .......................................... 33 1.3.14 True Descriptions are Different from False Descriptions ........................ 33 1.3.15 Appropriation of Metaphor Is Different from Appropriation of Literal Meaning ....................................................................................................................... 34 1.3.16 Mark 13 Is Able To Be Appropriated in a New Way ................................ 34 2.0 APPROPRIATION .................................................................................................... 36 2.1 DEFINITION OF APPROPRIATION ............................................................ 37 2.2 THE APPEAL OF THE TEXT ........................................................................ 44 2.2.1 Truth in Non-Historical Texts ...................................................................... 46 2.2.2 Appropriation of Apocalyptic Texts ............................................................ 51 2.2.2.1 Description of Apocalyptic ................................................................. 51 2.2.2.2 The Temporal Nature of Apocalyptic ............................................... 58 2.2.2.3 Mark 13 as an Apocalyptic Text ........................................................ 65 2.2.3 Ricoeur on the Bible’s Distinctiveness ......................................................... 67 2.2.3.1 The Text of a Faith Community ........................................................ 68 2.2.3.2 Distinctive Referent............................................................................. 70 2.2.3.3 Limit Expression ................................................................................. 71 2.2.3.4 Multiple Naming of God ..................................................................... 75 vii 2.2.4 The Challenge of the Yale School ................................................................. 78 3.0 THE ISSUES OF MARK 13 ..................................................................................... 84 3.1 PRESENTED AS LITERAL EVENTS ........................................................... 85 3.2 DESCRIPTIONS OF THE EVENTS .............................................................. 89 3.2.1 A: Temple Destruction .................................................................................. 93 3.2.2 B: Deception ................................................................................................... 94 3.2.3 C: Calamity .................................................................................................... 95 3.2.4 D: Persecution ................................................................................................ 97 3.2.5 E: Worldwide Proclamation ......................................................................... 97 3.2.6 F: The Abomination of Desolation ............................................................... 98 3.2.7 G: Cosmic Disruption .................................................................................. 102 3.2.8 H: The Appearance of the Son of Man ...................................................... 104 3.2.9 I: Ingathering of the Elect ........................................................................... 105 3.3 TIMING OF THE EVENTS ........................................................................... 106 3.4 PURPOSE FOR THE PREDICTION ........................................................... 110 3.5 PAST AND PRESENT APPROPRIATION OF THE PREDICTIONS .... 112 4.0 TEXTUAL AUTONOMY ....................................................................................... 117 4.1 ADDITIONAL MEANING PRESENT IN THE TEXT .............................. 120 4.2 MEANING IN ADDITION TO AUTHORIAL INTENT ............................ 123 4.2.1 The Author Intends Meaning ..................................................................... 124 4.2.2 The Text Exists Independently from the Author ...................................... 125 4.2.3 Reference of the Text Is Not the Ostensive Reference of the Author ..... 129 4.3 READING CONTEXT .................................................................................... 132 viii 4.3.1 The Text’s Presence in Different Contexts ................................................ 132 4.3.2 Reading as a Dialectical