100 gregory p. fewster
hegemonic relation between author and the critic, who asserts an author-
itative interpretation by aligning him/herself with that author.43 Barthes’
solution was to subvert this hegemony by appealing to the humble reader
as generator of meaning; however, this move has resulted, not in the sub-
version of interpretive hegemony, but rather in its relocation. canoni-
cal criticism, with its emphasis upon ecclesial reception, remains as an
attempt to apprehend the authority of biblical texts. this move is admit-
ted by its practitioners and emphasized by its critics.44 in this way, the
canonical critic aligns him/herself with the interpretations of the early
church in order to appropriate and mediate religious truth, similar to the
hegemonic pairing of historical critic and author.45
of course, my critique remains in the realm of theory. But, this point
is worth mentioning because the readings of canonical critics seem to fail
in their attempt to mediate the problems resulting from historical criti-
cal interpretation. as my summary of childs’ and Wall’s readings of the
head/body motif reveal, the most that these interpreters do is validate as
authoritative what they deem to be theological development in the dis-
puted Pauline letters. their reliance upon the conclusions of historical
critics, especially the fundamental assumption that ephesians and colos-
sians are deutero-Pauline, serves to reinforce these conclusions. from
my perspective, canonical criticism preserves historical-critical readings
more than it pushes against them. While it does not reach the extremes
43 see Barthes, “death of the author,” 147. see also Jacques derrida, “force and sig-
nification,” in Writing and Difference (trans. alan Bass; chicago: university of chicago
Press, 1978) 10–11, whose insistence on the deferral of meaning inherently rejects authorial
authority. such hegemony can be readily identified with the rule of historical criticisms
in biblical studies itself (see stephen d. moore, “a modest manifesto for new testament
literary criticism: How to interface with a literary studies field that is Post-literary, Post-
theoretical, and Post-methodological,” Biblical Interpretation 15 [2007]: 2).
44 as Burke suggests that the death of the author (despite the birth of the reader) leaves
an unmitigated gap where s/he once was—to be re-filled by some sort of author, however
it is re-defined (seán Burke, The Death and Return of the Author: Criticism and Subjectivity
in Barthes, Foucault and Derrida [2nd ed.; edinburgh: edinburgh university Press, 1998],
170–72). Burke’s suggestion is apropos in relation to the biblical field. see Wall, “canoni-
cal Perspective,” 539–41, for his admission of the goals of canonical criticism. cf. george
aichele, “canon as intertext: restraint or liberation?” in richard B. Hays, stefan alkier,
and leroy a. Huizenga (eds.), Reading the Bible Intertextually (Waco, tX: Baylor university
Press, 2009), 144–48, who identifies that canon functions as “ideological control.”
45 Porter makes a similar observation: “canonical readings, for all of their interpretive
strength, are still subject to the historical distance and even tension found in modern
critical readings—hence they resort to the canon as hermeneutical context” (stanley e.
Porter, “a single Horizon Hermeneutics: a Proposal for interpretive identification,” MJTM
13 [2011–2012 ]: 50).