Texts in search of interpretation. (Featured Reviews).

Watson, F. (2000).

Agape, eros, gender: Towards a Pauline sexual ethic. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Hardcover. [x.sup.+] 268 pp. $59.95. ISBN 0-521-66263-X.

Francis Watson is Professor of New Testament Exegesis at Scotland's University of Aberdeen. He was previously a Lecturer in New Testament Studies and Reader in Biblical Theology at London's King's College. He has authored three previous volumes, including Paul, Judaism, and the Gentiles (1986), Text, Church, and World (1994), and Text and Truth (1997). Watson holds the degree of Doctor of Philosophy from Oxford.

The texts the Apostle Paul has given us relating to gender and sexuality are, as Watson says, not only "few, brief and cryptic," but they are bathed as well in controversy as to their meaning. How incredible that the one who has given us some of the most sublime passages of New Testament literature is so often pilloried for several misunderstood or misinterpreted texts. As the "second founder" of Christianity, Paul wrote these controversial texts (e.g., 1 Corinthians H, Romans 7, Ephesians 5) that have been embraced wholeheartedly and legalistically, ridiculed and scorned, viewed as flawed psychologically, or perceived as a poorly drawn caricature of true Christian faith. Radical feminists rail against these texts and their author in the most strident of terms, angered by their perception that the Apostle relegated women to an inferior role in life and in the church. Indeed, Paul gets more than enough blame for a multitude of societal ills rooted in the patriarchy he is believed to have supported. In our tim e, political correctness puts these Pauline texts very much on the defensive. Watson is clear about the problems of interpretation when he states, "They (the texts) often fail to say what we think they should say, and we sometimes wish they had left unsaid what they actually do say. They are a problem for us" (p. viii).

However, Watson does not join the parade of Paul bashers. Neither is he entirely captivated by the results of classical hermeneutical methods applied to these texts. He is a leading British proponent of a newer approach generally referred to as "committed reading" of texts. The reader who is interested in the "committed reading" approach (Barton, 2001; Thistleton, 1992, p. 301) may find an easier understanding of this concept in Watson's (1999) earlier work. The language and style the committed reading approach evokes may be a source of the vague discomfort many fellow Evangelicals experience in trying to understand Watson's position. Without necessarily rejecting standard exegetical methodology out of hand, Watson believes that "to interpret is to use the texts to think with" (p. viii).

The book is constructed in three parts corresponding to the main emphases of the three Pauline texts: Velamen, referring to 1 Corinthians 11 (pp. 189); Concupiscentia, referring to Romans 7 (pp. 91-182); and Sacramentum, referring to Ephesians 5 (pp. 183-259). The book's central thesis is stated as follows:

If agape-the inner-trinitarian love opened up to human participation in Jesus and his Spiritacis the beginning and end of Christian faith and living, then it is agape that must provide the final criteria for Christian reflection on sexuality and gender. (p. ix)

Watson, therefore, argues that what the Pauline texts reveal about sexuality and gender requires that they be read "in the light of their unique and irreplaceable testimony to the divine agape, in Jesus and, through his Spirit, in a community in which there are both men and women together and not apart from one another." Although believers of both genders in this community are in no way strangers to the insistent reality of eros, their relationships evoke a love that is qualitatively different in practice-a love "whose origin and pattern is the divine love" that continually redirects Christians of both genders in worship, proclamation, and the ordinances (sacraments). If in concert with 1 John 4:10, our confession emphasizes that "we love, because he [Christ] first loved us," Watson declares that "whatever is said about sexuality and gender must conform to that confession" (p. ix).

Some rather large risks are taken by the author in the way he goes about his interpretative task. Each of his verse-by-verse interpretations of the three Pauline texts is preceded by a reading from a modern text (Virginia Wolff, Freud, and Luce Irigaray, respectively) that deals with issues raised by the texts. This methodology is part of his view of using "texts to think with." His rationale for the inclusion of modern texts is that, although they have a secular orientation, they may be seen in an imaginative sense as part of the wirkungsgeschichte of the Pauline texts (i.e., as though the 1st-century and 20th-century texts are speaking to one another in the same time frame and about similar issues). Furthermore, Watson believes that "the readings of the modern texts open up interpretative possibilities that would never come to light if we confined ourselves to the safety of the canonical texts" (p. ix).

In his discussion of 1 Corinthians 11, Watson embraces the view that the symbolic function of the head covering (veil) worn by women in the church was to demonstrate their authority to speak out in the church: The practical purpose of the head covering was to discourage male erotic fantasy while the woman was speaking authoritatively of and for the faith. Unlike the feminine separation espoused by Virginia Wolff, Watson perceives Paul's view as that of gender within togetherness.

Watson's exploration of Romans 7 focuses on the effect that fallen nature and the "new man" has on issues of gender and sexual ethics. His emphasis is on the putting to death (mortification) of concupiscentia (desire) and on the better Christian ideal of the primacy of agape.

Watson tackles the apparent contradiction of mutual submission of husband and wife in Ephesians 5:21 and the unilateral submission of Ephesians 5:22. His solution does not dismiss patriarchal marriage in a Christian context as much as it reinforces the ideal of agape as the rule that transforms eros.

Unquestionably Watson is not anti-woman. To the contrary, he is pro-woman. At the same time, he hardly buys into radical feminist views of Pauline texts. As a matter of fact, Clark (2001) seems to complain that Watson gives a "gentler read" to biblical texts that "on the surface appear less friendly to the aspirations and self-understanding of modern women." Watson is not only committed to the text, but also to Paul the writer. Let Paul speak, and let us in turn hear accurately what he is trying to say. Watson sees this as a necessity of his commitment as a Christian.

Our interest, of course, is the contribution the book makes or fails to make to psychotheological integration. Love, eros, and gender are most assuredly aspects of human behavior whether viewed psychologically or theologically. Anything that provides input and insight regarding gender issues in Paul's texts has undeniable integrative import. Watson does not appeal to formal psychological input and documentation even though the modern texts he cites have decided psychological implications. He makes no claim that Agape, Eros, and Gender are self-consciously integrative although he makes a noble effort to bring understanding of gender issues out of Paul's controversial statements. Watson's primary investment is as a New Testament scholar concerned with accurate interpretation of texts he believes would contribute to construction of a Pauline sexual ethic--the ultimate goal of this book. In a sense, it seems to me that the book attempts a corrective response to the muddiness some might even consider it madness o f much of the postmodern approach to biblical texts.

New Testament scholars can be expected to be the most avid readers of this volume. They possess the technical and critical tools most psychologists do not have, even those with a seminary background. The book and its approach seem likely to lead to serious pitfalls if one lacks such critical technical tools. The author's method and style make it difficult to hear and distinguish between the multiplicity of ancient and modern voices he evokes; therefore, he does not make it any easier for the less-than-sophisticated reader to make sense of his line of reasoning. Though the author may be included among conservative, evangelical scholars, some of his language and ideas may at times cause American Evangelicals to wince.

Fortunately, the tone of the work overall is irenic rather than polemic. Feminist scholars committed to a hermeneutics of suspicion will fault Watson for not viewing the Pauline texts in the same way they do, On the other hand, it is just as likely that some conservative scholars will view Watson's hermeneutics with considerable suspicion. It is not overstatement to say that the last word on the controversial texts has yet to be written. Much ink remains to be spilt on just what it is Paul meant by his statements on the relationship between agape, eros, and gender. Watson's book is sure to be referenced many times over in future writing on the Pauline texts.

REFERENCES

Barton, J. (2001). "Biblical scholarship today." In Church Times, 7 September 2001. Available online at http://www.oup.co.uk/academic/humanities/religion/obc/bib_schol/.

Clark, E. (2001). Society of Biblical Literature, Denver, CO, November 17-20, 2001. Romans Through History and Cultures. Session #1. Part II. Panel Discussion of the Interpretations of Romans in Bernadette Brooten, Love Between Women: Early Christian Responses to Female Homoeroticism (University of Chicago Press, 1998) and Francis Watson, Agape, Eros, Gender: Towards a Pauline Sexual Ethic (Cambridge University Press, 2000). Available online: http://www.vanderbilt.edu/AnS/religious_studies/SBL2001/clark.doc

Thistleton, A. C. (1992). New horizons in hermeneutics. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan,

Watson, F. (1999). The task of a confessing biblical scholarship. In Catalyst Online: "Contemporary evangelical perspectives for United Methodist seminarians," [Online]. http://catalystresources.org/issues/233watson.html

HUNTER, WILLIAM F., PhD, Professor Emeritus, Rosemead School of Psychology, Biola University, is a former editor of the Journal of Psychology and Theology. He and his wife served several terms as missionaries in the Congo (formerly Zaire) and Madagascar. He makes his home in retirement in Annandale, Minnesota.