Figura and the Critique of Supersession

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. The paper briefly summarizes Auerbach’s theory as it is presented in his 1939 “Figura,” then traces the vicissitudes of figura in post-liberal theological circles. The paper focuses especially on Lindbeck’s text from 1997, “The Gospel’s Uniqueness.” 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.