Corpus-Paul

["David Amador" <TheVoidBoy AT sprynet.com>]

Gibson, et al.,

I find the division of doctrinal from historical to be dubious, even if a
disciplinary commonplace, but I certainly understand your concern that we
seem to be reaching a moment where key fundamental values come into
conflict, and the common ground upon which our discussion has flourished now
finds itself opening up, turning into a chasm.

My own response to Prof. Goolde's statement of presuppositions ("canon"-ical
"theses"?), however, is to engage in a bit of dialogue, to see if I
personally couldn't continue my participation in this conversation:

1. What does "discoverers" mean?  For a rhetorician, it means indicates a
process by which a person works through to identify useful argumentative
topoi.  In other words, a rhetorician has a different metaphysical universal
informing the word "discover" than, say, a neo-Platonic, Cartesian, or
Kantian of modernity (who would say something exists 'out there' and 'apart'
from us upon which we, perhaps 'stumble upon').  In other words, for a
rhetorician, to "discover" is also to establish.

2. If there IS a canon, and it is accessible to us (through various means of
confirmation and disqualification), why do not "all scholars", but also
whole churches/traditions/hierarchies/geographies, not agree?  Surely
Coptic, Armenian, Greek, Roman, Protestant, Russian 'orthodoxies' could have
"discovered" THE canon by now?

3.  If a writing should be examined to determine whether or not they
'contradict' other teaching of Scripture, would this include writings which
are considered part of a canon?  I also wonder about the very 'slippery'
term, "teaching"?  Instruction is only a part of Scripture.

4. Note that the term "traditional" is traditional to a particular
tradition, namely, Protestant xianity.  The Roman Catholic canon, by sheer
history, has much greater claim to "traditional", and it has 73 books.  The
Orthodox, Armenian, and Coptic canons are also historically much more
"traditional" than the "traditional" 66, and they have even more.  It is
fine if you "recognize" only 66, but I was under the impression that
"recognizing" was not the same as "discovering"?

5.  Why should we not discard a writing because we do not like what it says?
Can we discard it because it contradicts other teaching?  And isn't that,
essentially, what scholars are doing when they discard the Pastorals as
contradicting the teaching of the "authentic" Pauline scriptures?

6. Given that pseudepigraphy was something that was done (along a broad
spectrum) in the ancient world, and given that imitatio was an important
pedagogical tool, and given that prosopopoieia was an important technique of
rhetorical argumentation, one has to a least allow for the possibility that
texts in the New Testament might not have been written by their ascribed
authors.  Paul probably didn't write any of his letters - his letter writers
did.  "Mark", "Matthew", "Luke" and "John" were anonymous writings.  While I
tend to be far more methodologically sceptical about the question of
pseudepigraphy of the Pauline letters (except, maybe, for Hebrews, 1 Tim,
Titus, and maybe Ephesians), one can't simply rule out its possible
existence in the new testament.

7. I tend to be very sympathetic to the idea that picking and choosing is an
easy way of avoiding the difficulty of some of the material.  I, myself,
want to play up the incredible diversity (teachingS) of the texts, and try
to get my students to see that they do not cohere into a consistent
"teaching" or "message", but rather struggle to find ways to express a
variety of experiences, commitments, arguments, values, counter-arguments,
cultures.  Discarding texts (whether by reference to "canon within the
canon", proof-texting, or scholarly disqualification) only serves the
purpose of reduction, consolidation: power.

For me, as a rhetorician, I find all these questions of authenticity,
historical reconstruction of timelines, authorial intention, socio-cultural
locations, etc., are all fascinating ways of making the text a foreign
object requiring a great deal of scholarly background before interpreting it
"correctly".  There might be something important and effective about this,
but, oddly enough, even on this list, the important questions of
"meaning(s)", "persuasive effect(s)", "message(s)", the "goadings of
mystery", the power of religious rhetoric, all get ignored in favor of
"history".

The stuff that Anders is talking about...That's been the most interesting
discussion yet.

-David Amador, Ph.D.
Santa Rosa, CA