722 Journal of the American Academy of Religion

than convincing, in part because of the terminological fluidity—parody, comedy,

humor. Moreover, many of the key points are asserted rather than argued, e.g.,
that the multiple occurrences of the verb "to eat" heighten the comic effect.
How does such repetition of this particular verb heighten comic effect? Readers
will appreciate Whedbee's answer to the "so what?" question. Unlike some studies
that simply offer an inventory of various literary devices or structures, Whedbee's
argues that comedy serves specific purposes. For example, when concluding his
study of Genesis, he maintains that comedy works in a critical fashion; it critiques
many principal characters, e.g., Adam and Jacob. Comedy also works to effect rec-
onciliation, e.g., Jacob with Laban or Joseph and his brothers. Finally, comedy
helps achieve celebration. Marriage and the exuberant regard for human life strike
the dominant notes in this family oriented book.
After analyzing these various biblical books, Whedbee undertakes a series
of "comic readings" and then argues on behalf of the comic vision throughout
the Hebrew Bible. Following the lead of Jack Miles, God: A Biography ("Taken
as a whole, the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible) is a divine comedy"), Whedbee writes, "I
would characterize the Hebrew bible as emerging finally as a comedy, a divine-
human comedy...." (287). In this regard, perhaps the most serious question one
may pose to Whedbee is the extent to which his forays into six books allow him to
conclude something about the Bible in its entirety. One would want to push for a
statement about the plot of the entire Bible, à la his first analytical category. After
all, he has focused on a series of rather unrelated stories. What is the story that
one might describe as comedie? Is it the story of humanity, of Israel? Though
Whedbee does refer to "the Hebrew biblical tradition," that tradition would need
to be identified with some particular narrative in order for Whedbee's claim to be
sustained. (The Hebrew Bible reads quite differently, depending upon whether
one uses the Jewish or the Christian canonical sequence.) When he talks about the
Bible "whether in its Jewish or Christian form" (286), one senses that the analysis
has moved beyond specific bibles to reflections about canon or religious literature
in general. In this regard, it is worth observing that Jack Miles focuses on the
Hebrew Bible and in the order of the Jewish canon and that Northrop Frye treats
explicitly the Christian Bible. These bibles are, after all, not identical.
In sum, Whedbee has offered a number of adventuresome and useful read-
ings. Those impressed by his arguments on behalf of the comedie in the Hebrew
Bible may find an interesting counterpoise in J. Cheryl Exum s Tragedy and Bibli-
cal Narrative: Arrows of the Almighty ( 1992).

David L. Petersen
Iliff School of Theology

Biblical Exegesis and the Formation of Christian Culture. By Frances M.

Young. Cambridge University Press, 1997. 325 pages. $59.95.

Study of early Jewish and Christian biblical interpretation has shifted

markedly in the last decades of the twentieth century along with the changing
 Book Reviews 723

currents in critical theory in the humanities. Earlier scholars, confident that in

the historical-critical method they had found the only objective means of discov-
ering the original meaning of biblical passages, looked askance at the highly cre-
ative, even fanciful allegorical interpretation practiced by most Fathers of the
Church. At the center of histories of early Christian biblical interpretation lay
a conflict between two competing schools of exegesis: one of Alexandria, com-
mitted to allegory, which found biblical narrative to be merely a code for mul-
tiple spiritual realities and/or philosophical truths; the other of Antioch, which
eschewed allegory in favor of typology, seeing earlier biblical events as types or
patterns for their later "fulfillment." These modern scholars praised Antiochene
exegetes for their closer adherence to the "literal" sense of the text and for their
appreciation of historical context and change, a sensibility more in tune with the
practices of the moderns' own time.
As theoretical movements such as reader-response criticism and deconstruc-
tion eroded historical criticism's monopoly on truth and meaning production in
the guild of biblical scholarship, contemporary students of earlier exegesis both
lost their sense of presumed superiority over ancient and medieval interpreters
and gained a new appreciation for the creativity and imagination displayed in the
readings of rabbinic midrash and Christian allegory. For theologically interested
scholars, whether historians or constructive theologians, these developments have
come as something of a relief, since it is the annoying habit of historical criti-
cism continually to complicate efforts to appropriate the Bible in the present,
whether through homiletic application or theological redescription. As Frances
Young puts it in her introduction to Biblical Exegesis and the Formation of Chris-
tian Culture, "Recent trends suggest that there is considerable dissatisfaction with
the limitations of histórico-critical research precisely because it yields no her-
meneutic" (3-4). Some British and American theologians now exhibit a certain
nostalgia for patristic, medieval, and Reformation exegesis, arguing for a return
to the days before "the eclipse of biblical narrative," when the Bible was "the Book
of the Church" (not of the university or, at least, not of the secular department of
religious studies), as if the Enlightenment could be dismissed as akin to a bad
dream.
Such nostalgia perhaps cannot be attributed to Frances Young, but her study
of early Christian biblical exegesis does seek to make clear how "from the Fathers'
methods and their endeavour we might learn much" even if "we may not always
find the conclusions of patristic exegesis satisfactory or plausible" (4). The lesson
of the Fathers for modern Christians appears to be that biblical interpretation
ought to embrace "the concerns we tend to separate out into scholarship, the-
ology, praxis, and spirituality. The purpose of biblical exegesis, implicit and ex-
plicit, was to form the practice and belief of Christian people, individually and
collectively" (299). To get to this lesson, Young engages in a kind of clearing the
air: she seeks to dismantle certain categories that reflect the earlier hey-day of his-
torical criticism and, to her mind, distort our understanding of patristic exegesis,
especially the distinctions among literal, typological, and allegorical interpre-
tation. Close readings of instances of interpretation by a variety of Church Fath-
ers (including Athanasius, Origen, Gregory of Nazianzus, John Chrysostom, and
724 Journal of the American Academy of Religion

Augustine) all conclude with some variation on this refrain: "The categories usu-
ally used to discuss patristic exegesis [viz., 'literal' and 'allegorical'] are inade-
quate to the task" (35). Making this point convincingly, Young draws attention
instead to the Christians' use of the methods and categories that were the stan-
dard techniques of the pagan rhetorical schools. Rather than developing novel,
Christian-specific methods (e.g., typology), Christian exegetes used on the Bible
the same reading strategies that pagans applied to their sacred texts, but with a
fundamentally different goal: the formation of a new Christian culture or, as she
sometimes more ominously styles it, a new "totalizing discourse" (a phrase bor-
rowed from Averil Cameron's Christianity and the Rhetoric of Empire: The Devel-
opment of Christian Discourse [ 1991] ).
Young warns her readers not to expect "a linear argument or chronologi-
cal account" (1), but the four parts of the book do form a logical progression of
steps that lead to Young's conclusion, "Towards an Outline Historical Account"
(285-299). Part I addresses the fundamental assumption that underlies early
Christian exegesis and distinguishes it from modern historical criticism: "that the
scriptures formed a unity" (7), that the Bible as a whole tells a single story with a
coherent theological message. Young explores the use of the codex and the devel-
opment of the Rule of Faith from this perspective and then turns to Athana-
sius's Orations Against the Arians to show how this Father's understanding of
the skopos ("mind") of Scripture led to a "deductive" exegesis that refuted Arian
readings of such troublesome passages as Proverbs 8:22. Part II ("The Bible as
Classic") examines how Christians promoted the Bible as an alternative to the
Greek classics and, through scholarly modes of intertextuality, borrowed from
the rhetorical schools, used it in their audacious "cultural take-over bid," their
effort not merely to replace pagan culture but to absorb it into a Christian dis-
course centered on the Bible.
Having established the context in which the Bible was a read as a unified
alternative to the traditional classics, Young can in Part III ("Language and Ref-
erence") mount her direct challenge to the traditional methodological categories
of literal, allegorical, typological, and the like. She does so by approaching the
Antiochene-Alexandrian debate from the perspective of "reference," how lan-
guage relates to the reality to which it refers: she contrasts the Fathers' views on
this topic with the postmodern perspective (119-139) and explores their "sacra-
mental" view of language (140-160). The Antiochenes and Alexandrians differed
not, as earlier scholars had claimed, in their contrasting levels of interest in his-
tory but in their alternative ways of relating text and reference. Ironically, despite
Young's criticisms of earlier scholars' valorization of Antiochene exegesis as more
historically minded, the Alexandrians still seem to come out the losers in her
comparison: "... what I call ikonic exegesis [ Antioch] requires a mirroring of the
supposed deeper meaning in the text taken as a coherent whole, whereas allegory
[Alexandria] involves using words as symbols or tokens, arbitrarily referring to
other realities by application of a code, and so destroying the narrative, or sur-
face, coherence of the text" (162). It may be asked whether this formulation does
justice to the work of, say, Origen, or whether it merely rephrases in modern
 Book Reviews 725

terms the Antiochene critique of the Alexandrian tradition ("The Antiochenes

found this arbitrary..." [212] ). In any event, within her text/reference paradigm
Young constructs a table of "reading strategies" (212-213) that she offers as a bet-
ter, because more complex, picture of ancient exegetical method than the old lit-
eral/allegorical/typological approach.
Part IV ("The Bible and the Life of Faith") uses this new perspective to
ask whether early exegesis varied with the generic context in which it took place
(commentary, debate, homily, liturgy, and so on). The answer is no: "different
interpretive genres did not produce distinguishable exegetical strategies," since
all were engaged "in the multi-faceted process of finding life's meaning portrayed
in the pages of scripture" (216). The prolific Augustine serves as an example of all
that has gone before (265-284). The book then concludes with a tentative outline
of what a historical account of early Christian biblical exegesis might look like
from Young's perspective (285-299).
Historians of early Christianity, biblical scholars, and Christian theologians
will profit most from the close readings, dense arguments, and meticulous schol-
arship offered in this work of prodigious learning. Young's case against the older
paradigm is thoroughly convincing. Readers will find the book most satisfying if
they understand that it delivers no more and no less than what the title promises.
The subject here really is (for the most part) "biblical exegesis" in the strict sense,
that is, learned interpretation practiced by educated, if not professional, scholars.
When Young takes on allusion (rather than explicit commentary), for example,
it is in the highly polished oratory of Gregory of Nazianzus (97-113). Aside from
a brief look at the "paraenetic" and "mimetic" use of scripture in the Acts of Paul
(238-240), there is not much here about less professional, self-conscious, or lit-
erary modes of cultural formation through biblical appropriation, such as art,
"apocryphal texts," and ascetic literature. And the culture that is formed by the
exegetes Young studies is indeed a singular "Christian culture," not the aston-
ishing diversity of Christian cultures that other scholars are wont to emphasize.
For example, although Marcion and Valentinus receive their expected serious
attention, the Gnostic sect, which produced such startlingly creative works of
biblical interpretation as The Reality of the Rulers, is not so fortunate. Character-
ized, oddly enough, as "both more syncretistic and more counter-cultural" than
other Christians (61), the Gnostics are said, as Irenaeus claimed of them, to have
"had no interest in the hypothesis" of scripture, which was "a coherent narrative
within which the signs and symbols [of the Bible] made sense" (292). It seems
possible that the Gnostics did have an interest in such a hypothesis, just not the
one that Irenaeus promoted: after all, when they interpreted Genesis, they told a
coherent, if complicated, narrative. For an excellent study of another such "alter-
native Christian culture," see Maureen Tilley, The Bible in Christian North Africa:
The Donatisi World (1997).
Still, even scholars who would choose to wander farther from the high lit-
erary culture of Origen, Augustine, and company will find much in this learned
book that is provocative, stimulating, and convincing. Christians who would
hope to turn contemporary biblical interpretation into a more patristic-like mode
726 Journal of the American Academy of Religion

will find in Young's argument, as I read it, both encouragement and a warning.
On the one hand, Young approves of the Fathers' lack of separation of scholar-
ship from church life, their aim of forming a Christian culture through biblical
exegesis. On the other hand, she emphasizes that their methods were not sectar-
ian but drawn from the best non-Christian scholarship of their time.

David Brakke
Indiana University
 ^ s
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