Figura and the Critique of Supersession

In the wake of the Shoah, the doctrine of supersession has come under considerable fire. ‘Supersession’ is a modern theological term that describes the vexed relation of Jews and Christians in the arc of the history of salvation. Both Christians and Jews consider themselves to be the people of God, thus the privileged vehicle of soteriological action in history. Christians have long understood themselves as the ‘true Israel.’ This implies the nullification of the Mosaic covenant and the exclusion—barring their conversion—of the Jews from God’s salvific plan for humanity. For this reason, supersession is often described by proponents and critics alike as ‘replacement theology,’ which means what it says: Christians have taken the place of Jews. Supersession is also described as ‘fulfillment theology,’ which many Christian theologians, if they are invested in the critique of supersession, take to be a term more amenable to inter-faith dialogue, as well as better suited to historic Christian doctrine on the question. The language of ‘fulfillment’ signifies that Christianity is the truth of Judaism; the events of the New Testament are the fulfillment of the prophecies of the Old Testament. 

More recently, these understandings of supersession, which often overlap and reinforce one another, have been complemented by a distinction—popularized by David Novak, between hard and soft supersession. The hard supersessionist sticks to their theological guns: Christianity has totally and irrevocably superseded Judaism, and the only option for Jews is to convert to Christianity; a Jewish-Christian interfaith dialogue is impossible. The soft supersessionist maintains that Christianity has introduced something new into God’s covenant with Israel, but does not take the ‘hard’ step toward claiming total expropriation of that covenant. Most Christian critics of supersession tend to espouse one or another variety of soft supersession; they are open to dialogue with their Jewish counterparts and open to self-criticism.   

While I am broadly sympathetic to the critique of supersession, and to the inter-faith dialogue it is meant to foster, it is difficult to dispel the feeling that there is, in fact, no Christian solution to the problem of supersession. This is so for at least two reasons. First, the proposed solutions to the problem tend to avail themselves of the very source of the problem, namely, the figural interpretation of scripture, according to which “historically real prophecies” in the form of persons and events (figures, or types) in the Old Testament are fulfilled in historically real persons and events (fulfillments, or antitypes) in the New Testament. Second, if Christians were to resolve to finally abandon the basic gesture of figural interpretation, they would lose the scriptural, historical, and theological warrant of the Christian faith itself—namely, the historical and prophetic existence of the Jews for Christianity. 

In order to get this problem—and its insolvency—into view, this paper considers the reception of Erich Auerbach’s concept of figura in the works of Hans Frei and George Lindbeck, especially the way that ‘figural interpretation’ and ‘figuration’ are deployed by Frei and Lindbeck as a means of recovering a ‘classic model’ of reading scripture that—allegedly—avoids the theological and political pitfalls of the logic of supersession. I begin by briefly summarizing Auerbach’s theory as it is presented in his 1939 “Figura.” I then trace the vicissitudes of figura in post-liberal theological circles. The paper focuses especially on Lindbeck’s text from 1997, “The Gospel’s Uniqueness.” Lindbeck is to be credited for how clearly he perceives the problem of supersession, and for how passionately he pursues a solution that aims to preserve the simultaneous distinction and inclusion of Christians and Jews in the history of salvation, without falling into the trap of ‘supersessionism.’ However, it seems to me that there is a basic weakness in Lindbeck’s procedure, which can be glimpsed by attending two critical moves that he makes. 

On the one hand, Lindbeck exploits a distinction between typological and figural interpretation. This allows Lindbeck to avail himself of the Greek rubric of prototype and ectype—rather than type and antitype—thus avoiding the supersessionist figure-fulfillment rubric that obtains in Auerbach’s construal of the Latin figura as historically real prophecy. On the other hand, he effects an elision of figural interpretation and figuration. This causes the singularity of figural interpretation—a uniquely Christian practice of reading scripture and the load-bearing pillar of the logic of supersession—to be obscured by its generalization to inter-textual reading (i.e., ‘figuration’ broadly construed). 

I argue that, far from avoiding, much less dissolving, the problem of supersession, Lindbeck’s hermeneutics effaces the distinctively Christian genesis and structure of figural interpretation as the concrete, historical practice of the logic of supersession, and ultimately repeats the supersessionist gesture at the very moment he claims to repudiate it. In fact, it seems to me that Auerbach’s critical account of the theological payload of figura neutralizes both of Lindbeck’s moves avant la lettre. The ecclesiological typology of Israel’s expansion ultimately reduces to the supersessionist grammar of fulfillment (Israel is incomplete: the Christians are missing) and is indelibly structured by the Christological experience (Israel’s expansion is a historical event: the Incarnation). Indeed, it seems to me that Auerbach’s work might profitably be understood not simply as an instance of the critique of supersession, but as an early entry in the critique of the critique of supersession. That is to say, Auerbach was—and is—a pioneer in what, today, is called the critique of Christianity.