Date Posted:16:24:49 02/22/08 Fri Author:Erin Risch Subject: What makes me skeptical about Girard's reading of the Gospels
In Chapter 11 of I See Satan, Girard kindly and humbly says that he hopes to avoid letting his theory blind him, letting it become "a totalitarian and infallible theory that makes the theoretician deaf and blind to the love fo God for humankind and to the love that human beings share with God, however imperfectly" (152). However, I can't help feeling like sometimes he does let his theory blind him, but in an inverse sense; that is to say, it opens his eyes too much and he goes wild extrapolating and interpreting. A concrete example:
When discussing the skandalon, Girard says, "The Greek word skandalizein comes from the verb that means 'to limp.' What does a lame person resemble? To someone following a person limping it appears that the person continually collides with his or her own shadow" (ISSFLL, p. 16). Having no knowledge of the Greek language, I can't even begin to tell you if his interpretation of limping is common or if it accurately applies to the word skandalon. But in the absence of further etymological evidence, I couldn't help feeling skeptical.
There were many other passages in the text where I couldn't help writing in the margin, "Maybe . . . but maybe not!" For instance, on p. 127 of the same book, Girard writes, "A typical example in the Gospel of John is the way Jesus, soon to be crucified, cites a very simple saying, 'They hated me without cause' (John 15:25; cf. Ps. 35:19). It appears banal at first . . . " I instantly thought to myself, "No, that doesn't seem banal at all." Is it possible that Jesus meant what he said, that he was affirming that his absolute innocence fulfilled the prophecies? I just can't help feeling that sometimes Girard looks too far into the text, crafting interpretations that seem, for lack of a better word, far-fetched.
Am I alone in this? I hate to misquote or misinterpret Jon Fisher, but I believe that when were discussing this in Saga the other day, he said that he felt like Girard sometimes did "anti-Girardian" readings of the Gospels; that is, he reads his theory into them instead of faithfully and openly examining the text. But I will let Jon either correct me or finish out his thought in his own post.
