STUDI INTERTEKSTUALITAS TERHADAP ROMA 8:18-23

As an environmental mantra, Romans 8:18-23 has become one of the main pillars of the Christian ecotheology that gives mandate to Christians to take care of environment. Through this text, ecological crisis can be read not empirically but theologically. The hermeneutical issue of the text is that interpreters do not yet agree about the background of Paul’s argument. In the midst of the variety of interpreters’ suggestions of Paul’s background in Romans 8:18-23, intertextuality approach proposes Isaiah 24:1-7 as an allusion that Paul intentionally alluded to in Romans 8:18-23. Intertextuality approach proves that Isaiah 24:1-7 has some connections with Romans 8:18-23. In writing Romans 8:18-23, Paul had read Isaiah 24:1-7 figuratively in the light of Christ. Thus, restoring the context and theological message of Isaiah 24:1-7 illuminates the reading of Romans 8:18-23. Likewise, understanding why Paul used Isaiah 24:1-7 in Romans 8:18-23 helps readers read Isaiah 24:1-7. Keywords: ecotheology, intertextuality, figural reading, Romans 8 Abstrak: Roma 8:18-23 sebagai environmental mantra merupakan salah satu pilar utama ekoteologi Kristen yang memberikan mandat kepada orang Kristen untuk memperhatikan lingkungan. Melalui teks ini, krisis ekologis dapat dipahami bukan secara empiris melainkan secara teologis. Sekalipun demikian, para penafsir masih belum sependapat mengenai latar pemikiran Paulus dalam Roma 8:18-23. Di tengah beragamnya usulan para penafsir atas latar pemikiran Paulus dalam Roma 8:18-23, pendekatan intertekstualitas mengusulkan Yesaya 24:1-7 sebagai alusi yang sengaja disinggung Paulus dalam Roma 8:18-23. Pendekatan intertekstualitas membuktikan keterkaitan Yesaya 24:1-7 dengan Roma 8:18-23. Dalam menulis Roma 8:18-23, Paulus telah membaca Yesaya 24:1-7 secara figural dalam terang Kristus. Dengan demikian, pemulihan konteks dan pesan teologis Yesaya 24:1-7 menerangi pembacaan Roma 8:18-23. Demikian pula, pemahaman mengapa Paulus menggunakan Yesaya 24:1-7 dalam Roma 8:18-23 menolong pembaca memahami Yesaya 24:1-7. Kata Kunci: ekoteologi, intertekstualitas, pembacaan figural, Roma 8 .

Tragical Mimesis and Biblical Interpretation I

This chapter moves straightaway into the first, and foundational, form of early Christian tragical mimesis, the interpretation of tragic (and tragic-comic) biblical narratives. “Dramatic” interpretation was not a method all its own but drew upon both literal and figural reading of the scriptural texts, and focused on mimetic re-presentation of the narratives in ways that highlighted and amplified their tragic elements. It served a primarily “contemplative” mode, or theôria, of reading tragic narratives, conducive to a tragical vision of sacred history. The chapter turns to some case studies of tragical or dramatic interpretation of the primitive tragedies in Genesis: the precipitous fall of Adam and Eve and their recognition thereof; and the tragic sibling rivalries of Cain and Abel and Jacob and Esau. Attention is given to the specific Aristotelian elements of tragedy (plausible or realistic plots; characters’ fateful miscalculation, or hamartia; reversal of fortune, or peripeteia; discovery, or anagnorisis; pathos, et al.) which patristic exegetes discerned in these stories. Mimetic or dramatic interpretation enhanced these elements all the more as means to draw audiences into the cosmic significance of the narratives related to moral evil, the legacies of sin and death, the fear of determinism, and the justice and providence of God.

‘By moste sweete and comfortable allegories’

The Song of Songs, as a poetic dialogue between two lovers, presented literally minded biblical commentators with a thorny exegetical dilemma: either accept the presence of a purely erotic text in scripture, or make the case for a literal reading that was figurative. Like early modern exegesis of the Song, poetic recapitulations of this biblical book, such as those by William Baldwin, Francis Quarles, and Robert Aylett, rely on complex figural reading practices to substantiate a spiritual meaning not directly implied by the biblical text. But this dependence on human words to secure the relationship between sign and spiritually signified exposes reformed anxieties about the inherently fallen nature of the human mind, and the broader inadequacy of language to articulate spiritual truth.