cover image Jesus and the Politics of Interpretation

Jesus and the Politics of Interpretation

Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza, Elisabeth Schssler. Continuum, $22.95 (0pp) ISBN 978-0-8264-1273-7

Who was Jesus? Fiorenza, a professor at Harvard Divinity School, argues that from the Gospels on, those who have written about Jesus have defined him in their own image, which has tended to be white, male, elitist, antifeminist and anti-Jewish. She adds that in reaction to fundamentalist writers who have tried to pin down one definition of who Jesus was, ""Historical Jesus"" researchers have stressed the objectivity and scientific method of their research. However, this supposedly objective research, Fiorenza asserts, has been affected by ""cultural androcentrism"" or ""kyriocentrism,"" meaning that all research is dependent upon the social and political context of the researcher. Thus any search for a ""Historical Jesus"" is dependent upon the researcher's own interpretations, or ""reconstruction."" Fiorenza's investigation includes chapters on past and current feminist, historical and theological research of Jesus. Her book is nicely outlined but typical of postmodern criticism, which is to say that it is densely worded, tediously self-absorbed and frequently footnoted with definitions of terms such as wo/men and malestream. Its main conclusion--which is neither radical nor fresh--is to call for Historical Jesus researchers to reconsider their interpretative assumptions. Unlike some of Fiorenza's earlier work, this is for scholars only--a curious irony given the book's own harangue against theological elitism. (Nov.)