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  • From: peter_kirk AT sil.org
  • To: <b-hebrew AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Re: SV: The appropiateness of the discussion thread
  • Date: Tue, 04 Jan 2000 20:09:54 -0500


Dear Prof. Lemche,

I hope I have not been seen as trying to attack anyone's personal
beliefs, and certainly not as trying to change them. If I have been
seen as doing so, I apologise.

But surely it is a personal belief, whether religious or
anti-religious, of many (including, if I understood you correctly,
yourself) that God (even if he exists) does not intervene in human
history or give to humans knowledge of future events - just as much as
it is a personal religious belief of mine that God can do so and has
done so. Now you are entitled to your personal beliefs and I am not
trying to change them. On the other hand, I have read your postings as
saying that those who hold the beliefs which I hold, and who use them
in their essays, are necessarily unscholarly, and that you would fail
their work. That can easily be understood as an attack on my personal
beliefs. Now you may be within your rights in saying that in your
scholarly world (as perhaps on this list) people should refrain from
expressing their personal beliefs, though that has to cut equally both
ways. But you go further than that in that you expect others to
actively hold to your own personal beliefs, or at least to pretend to
do so and express that in their essays, so that they can graduate.
That is to me especially offensive in that intending ministers of the
Danish church are required to accept or to pretend to accept beliefs
contrary to the historic faith of that church in order to graduate
from your university and be ordained.

Peter Kirk


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Subject: SV: The appropiateness of the discussion thread
Author: <npl AT teol.ku.dk> at Internet
Date: 04/01/2000 14:27


Answer to Paul Zellmer,

a discussion about personal beliefs is out of bonds, as is an argument based
on personal beliefs. I think that Ian H.'s position. Beliefs in scholarly
ideas that can and should be changed according to evidence and general
knowledge has nothing to do with personal beliefs. i aimed at a scholarly
position that might chance, as I have over the last 30 years changed almost
everything. It has nothing to do with religious beliefs. Just to insinuate
this is to attack personal religious beliefs, and that is out of bonds. So
if scholar X is the conviction that something is X1 and is attacking another
scholar Y because of his beliefs that it is Y1, X is behaving according to
protocol. If a conservative scholar--and I stress the word scholar, as I ask
us to limit this to people who are au courant with the available evidence
and are trained to interpret this--is maintaining something because of the
person's religious convictions, this is offensible and should not be
accepted, and when this person is attacked by other people because of the
presuppositions that may be seen as a distortion of his analysis of the
material, he can not defend his position by maintaining that it is his
religious convictions that are under attack. If you on the other hand attack
a scholar for having based his or hers ideas on a religious (or political
for that matter) conviction, you have to prove your case or you are acting
in an improper way. If we do not get these categories right, there will and
can be no more conversation.

For Nashville in the fall of 2000 (SBL National Meeting) I and a
conservative scholar try to set up a program unit discussing these matters:
What is scholarship and appropriate for scholars to discuss and what is not.
Charles and I may not agree on many things from a scholar's point of viewm
but we agree on the so-called ROE, it is 'rules of engagement'.

NPL






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