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  • From: Doug Jantz <dwjantz AT swbell.net>
  • To: Corpus-paul <corpus-paul AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Re: Does True Historian = Objective Historian?
  • Date: Mon, 18 Sep 2000 07:45:25 -0500



"Ronald L. Troxel" wrote:
As true as it is that we work out of cultural environments that

> condition our reading, if the situation were as bleak as you've
> depicted it, I would turn in my cap and gown. By this philosophy of
> reading, scholarship is simply about identifying the cultural
> influences on a given reading or (worse) revelling in our inevitable
> anachronisms.
>
> I'm not arguing for "objectivity," but for the ability to distinguish
> (to some significant but unquantifiable degree) between the author's
> world and ours. If that is truly impossible, then let's give up the
> charade of trying to reconstruct Christian origins or to talk about
> what Paul "meant."
>
> Ron Troxel
>
> --
> Ronald L. Troxel, Ph.D.
> Senior Lecturer
> Dept. of Hebrew and Semitic Studies
> University of Wisconsin-Madison
>
>

This is interesting as I just finished this summer a course in Historical
Theology
with Dr. Stanley Burgess. At the start he made the statement that there is
no such
thing as a "complete history of Christianity." Reconstructing Christian
origins and
discerning what Paul meant, as Dr. Troxel writes, is not quite as simple as I
used to
think. The tradition in which I grew up (churches of Christ) was big on
this, and
also "authorial intent." These were so simple then, but seem so no longer.
The "intent" of the author was/is an important part in supporting a particular
viewpoint in some traditions. How can one be SURE beyond doubt the intent of
the
author in writing what he wrote? We can't. We can do the best we can to
reconstruct
the circumstances from what we have, but there is no completeness because we
know we
do not have *everything* that there is to have from whatever period of
history we are
studying.
We can only do the best we can with what we have to work with.
Is there such a thing as real objectivity? Maybe, maybe not. All of us are
influenced by and conditioned by our environment and culture. As Ron says,
we should
be able to distinguish between between the author's world and ours, but I am
not
convinced we can derive black and white conclusions about the texts we study
from this
alone.


--
Doug Jantz
Springfield, Missouri
Religious Studies Program
Southwest Missouri State University

dwjantz AT swbell.net
<http://home.swbell.net/dwjantz>

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