Corpus-Paul

["Dieter Mitternacht" <dieter.mitternacht AT teol.lu.se>]

Eric: 
> In science, only the data (here, the primary
> sources) are evidence (some of much higher quality than others), but no
> scholar's interpretation is evidence for anything.

I am puzzled. If no interpretation is evidence for anything then how can we 
know that the data are evidence for anything to begin with? How do we know 
that we are dealing with primary sources and to what they are primary? How do 
we know that we can rely on Nestle-Aland? How do we decide that texts are to 
be put into artificial families of texts and then be judged according to 
their 'historical reliability' (to name but one textcritical principal of 
interpretation). Especially with Acts, how do know which of the texts of Acts 
is primary unless by means of many acts of interpretation?  

And even if we were able to decide on what are primary sources of 
Christbelieving Judaism  without relying on processes of careful 
determination and interpretation (which of course is impossible), how are 
these data accessible at all unless they are assessed? But how do I assess 
data without saying something about them? And how do I say something about 
the data written in complicated foreign languages in English or Swedish or 
whatever without engaging in interpretation someway or another? How would I 
communicate my knowledge about the data to others without naming it (Paul's 
letter to the Galatians, for instance), i.e. interpreting it?

In historical science at least, I don't think there is anything but 
interpreted data. And this holds true just as much for coins, stones and 
pottery as well as for texts. In other words, I have to accept that whatever 
evidence I appeal to, even whatever convictions I am dedicating my efforts 
to, I am likely to be laughed at a few years (decades if I'm lucky) down the 
road. This was the fate of great 'scientists' like Adolf von Harnack, who was 
stripped naked (so it seemed at least at the time) by Albert Schweitzer, who 
then was stripped......


Dieter Mitternacht 
Lund Univerisity