Corpus-Paul

["Mark D. Nanos" <nanosmd AT home.com>]

on 6/12/01 12:41 PM, Bob Tannehill at BTannehill AT mtso.edu wrote:

> In response to Mark, I agree that understanding Paul in his historical
> context is an important task. It is not just an antiquarian task, for it can
> open insights that would otherwise be hidden. It is my impression, however,
> from looking at recent work on 1 Cor that it is unlikely that one
> reconstruction of the "rhetorical situation" (that is, the situation that
> Paul was responding to, or thought he was responding to) will be able to
> eliminate other possibilities, since much depends on the particular way that
> the interpreter fills gaps and draws connections while examining the
> evidence. As a result, reconstructions should be recognized as
> tentative--more tentative than their creators usually admit.

Fully agree. In fact, recognition of the fact that interpreters are, well,
interpreters, coupled with the fact that most interpreters of Paul have been
interested--even in historical critical matters--because of the place of his
voice in their ideological (usually theological) agendas, more so than they
would for example be if doing historical research on some figure unrelated
to their own belief-system, it is not surprising that we have this
limitation in much of the work about Paul. Not only are the various
methodologies that the modern interpreter should employ relatively new, the
practitioners are often relatively naive about their own presuppositions as
well as the tools. These are easy problems to note, though still too seldom
noted, or accepted and woven into the approaches employed or the conclusions
offered. 

The challenge is to articulate ways forward that might promise to increase
our understanding, ways to imagine and formulate new hypotheses, ways to
test them, ways to measure for the results, ways to put them to good use,
etc. Perhaps if historical critics will try to understand their own
interests and articulate them at the start of the enquiry, then try to
re-evaluate the evidence available with all the tools and creativity they
can muster, in dialogue with others making the same effort, many of the
possibilities can be presented and clarified before they are too easily
dismissed in the effort to strengthen only those that support the
interpreters' own desired conclusions. Then plausibility can be examined as
each of the models imagined is tested. Of course the testing is done from
the same material with which the modeling began, but as long as this
circular constraint is recognized, the results can always offered with some
tentativeness. It is hard to recognize anomalies in need of investigation,
or to ask new questions if the conclusions held are already satisfying and
self/group-serving. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, but also nothing held
dear is threatened! In addition, how many times might the thing that is
uninvestigated lead to new insights, if not left un-reexamined because
"everyone knows/agrees on that"?

This kind of historiographical discipline is still too seldom found in
approaches to Paul; besides ideological agendas (realized and unrealized)
there is the impulse to defend the interpreter's previous interpretive turf
instead of continuing to learn/question, failing to recognize the
tentativeness to which you call attention. Who is not guilty of this? But it
need not remain so. At least we should help each other along in a spirit of
support and mutual humility.

May I just add that while I am disappointed when reviewers of my work
dismiss something out of hand, I am also delighted to see the defense
offered is merely something like "we all know....etc.," without proper
argumentation. I figure that a new contribution has been made, though
perhaps not yet recognized for what it is. But the reader of the
review/argument may not be so naive, or unready to think about the problem
newly raised. The next students may mine these newly noticed seams in what
had been previously understood to be a singular piece of cloth.

Regards,
Mark
-- 
Mark D. Nanos, Ph.D.
313 NE Landings Dr.
Lee's Summit, MO 64064
USA
nanosmd AT home.com