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Subject: Corpus-Paul

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  • From: "David C. Hindley" <dhindley AT csi.com>
  • To: "Corpus-paul" <corpus-paul AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: If not me, who?
  • Date: Sat, 12 Jun 1999 12:27:57 -0400


Jeffery Gibson wrote:

>>At the risk of sounding too personal, I'd like to share with List
members something that troubles me. For it concerns the vitality of the
List.

Recently I have had a number of off list messages from (now former) C-P
members saying that they have decided to unsubscribe because, against
their expectations, they haven't seen any discussion on the List of
the particular Pauline topics or themes they joined the list to explore
or hear about.

Apart from the fact that there is a certain irony in this--most of those
who have told me that they did not see anything that interested them,
never, so far as I can tell, (or only rarely) attempted to start a
discussion on what would have kept them subscribed if it *had*
appeared--these messages raise the point that no topic gets mooted by
itself. Someone *has* to initiate it.

In the light of this, may I request, then, that List Members who have
not seen discussed what you want to see discussed take the hold of the
reins and initiate the threads you have interest in.

Perhaps our motto should be the adage of Hillel:

If not me, who?
If not now, when?<<

Jeffery,

Just out of curiosity, have you kept track of the topics that these people
complained were -not- being discussed? I'd be curious to see it posted.

You have previously mentioned that we had one or two "name" scholars drop out
because the discussion was perhaps a bit too general for their tastes. Others
have expressed exasperation that most posts do not take traditional
interpretations of the corpus seriously. My take is that the majority of
participants tend to range between moderate liberals and moderate
conservatives, but lacks serious posts from unqualified "conservatives" or
"liberals", much less the more radical representatives. Is this a good or a
bad thing? I do not know, but I would like to see more diversity.

Personally, I think the best way to make this list a more pleasant place to
lurk (and in time participate) is to inject a little humility into the
discussions. How many posts confidently assert that "Paul is obviously saying"
this, or that? Yet a good deal of the premises used in the arguments presented
appear to be assumed rather uncritically (at least it seems to me), and the
results of the syllogisms are presented as facts. As far as I can see, this
problem is equally evident at both ends of the conservative-liberal spectrum.

All I would ask is that participants routinely say "in my (humble) opinion",
or that "the author of Acts has Paul say X" rather than "Paul says X". In
other words, express opinions as opinions (and that extends, equally, to the
results of critical research as much as off-the-cuff comments), and attribute
the premises used in arguments to a source or at least outline them so we are
all on the same page regarding what you mean by terms.

Regards,

Dave Hindley
Cleveland, Ohio, USA





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