Hans Frei and Karl Barth: Different Ways of Reading Scripture

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Summary: Jesus identity includes the church
Review: In Hans Frei & Karl Barth: Different Ways of Reading Scripture, David Demson has offered a sympathetic critique of one of the important figures in contemporary theological-hermeneutic discussion. In a extended comparison with Karl Barth's reading of the Gospel Narratives, the late Hans Frei's The Identity of Jesus Christ is subjected to an examination, which identifies a lacuna in his reading of Scripture. Stated baldly, while Frei is careful to explicate the specific identity of Jesus in relation (of obedience) to God in the texts of the Gospels, he leaves undeveloped (indefinite) Jesus' relation to the apostles. For Barth and for the New Testament, argues Demson, Jesus relationship to God and to a specific group of witness (the apostles) are held together. Jesus enacts his unsubstitutable identity as Saviour, so that the specific man Jesus cannot be thought of as an instance of the general class "Saviour," as Frei maintains against mythological readings of the New Testament. However, "ingredient in Jesus' identity" says Demson "are his appointment, calling, and commissioning of the Twelve" (x), and, on this account, Frei's reading of the Gospels is indefinite, and vulnerable to mythological interpretation. Jesus presence with and for specific human partners is left too diffuse on Frei's reading of the Gospels.