Over the holidays I re-read one of the first books I tacked for this PhD:

Christian Figural Reading and the Fashioning of Identity Author: John David Dawson ISBN: 9780520226302 Publisher: University of California Press         Release: Dec 2001 Format: Hardcover         Pages: 309 My Rating:

Comments/Quotes: “Figural reading in the Christian tradition seeks to express the dynamic process of spiritual transformation in ways that respect the practitioners’ commitment to both past and future, both old identity and newly refashioned identity. Imbedded in figural practice is all the drama of discerning the point of existence and identifying one’s place in it, figured as a journey from a former mode of existence through various states of transformation toward some ultimate end” (216). “Those familiar with a religion that affirms that submission to God’s agency constitutes human freedom, or that Jesus of Nazareth is no less human for being diving, or that divine power is manifested as divine suffering, or that wholly historical action is the realization of a transcendent divine intention, will not be surprised by the equally unexptected claim that fulfillments are more, and yet again not more, than their figures” (218).

Dawson’s tightly written book is one of the more intriguing comments on supersessionism I know. And as an exploration of its core concern, Christian figural reading, I know nothing else quite like it. It sets three modern concerns about figural reading—the body (represented by Daniel Boyarin), history (Erich Auerbach), identity (Hans Frei)—against a treatment of Origin, that ancient, (in)famous allegorizer, chosen for what he has to say to those who would read Hebrew Scripture as the Christian Old Testament. The book repaid a second reading every bit as much as my first. Highly recommended.

Tags: Figura, Frei