From: Carl W. Conrad (cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu)
Date: Tue Nov 28 1995 - 19:33:05 EST
At 5:05 PM 11/28/95, Mark O'Brien wrote:
>Original message sent on Tue, Nov 28 7:57 AM by cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu
>(Carl
>W. Conrad) :
>
>>At 7:09 AM 11/28/95, Daniel Hedrick wrote:
>>>Would you say that by your efforts in studying
>>>ancient Greek and the bibical record that your
>>>faith in the absolute innerancy of the Word of God
>>>has been increased, decreased or remain the same?
>>>
>>>Has your faith in God increased, decreased or
>>>remained the same?
>>>
>>>Would you say that "anyone" who takes an honest
>>>and thorough approach to the the study the bibilical
>>>record and ancient greek will be forced to see
>>>the "divine" hand of God in action, regardless
>>>of their faith in God?
>>>
>>
>>In my judgment, this is an improper question to put to this list. While
>>those who wish to respond offline to it can readily do so, I would hope
>>that we don't let this sort of thing intrude into list discussion itself.
>
>However, it strikes me that very few of us are able to approach the
>exegesis of the text without some reference to our presuppositions
>concerning the reliability or veracity of the text. I know that we
>would like to let ourselves think that our exegesis fully drives our
>theology, but I have a strong feeling that this is not reality! (Take, for
>example, the recent discussion regarding 1Co 13.)
This is unquestionably true, but it is another thing altogether to start
talking about biblical inerrancy. Some of us hold to such a doctrine while
others do not. To start a discussion on that topic is most likely to bring
us to start flaming each other rather than helping each other out in
matters where we CAN be helpful to each other. Theology cannot help but
intrude into discussions of the Greek text, but it is the Greek text that
is our primary focus, as was clearly indicated in the description of the
list sent out to all of us, and I think it is only at great risk that we
embark upon direct discussion of theological issues themselves. That sort
of discussion--which focuses precisely on those issues upon which we
disagree, and perhaps very intensely--is precisely what is most likely to
disrupt the sort of community we have carefully tried to build on this
list.
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University
One Brookings Drive, St. Louis, MO, USA 63130
(314) 935-4018
cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu OR cwc@oui.com
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.4 : Sat Apr 20 2002 - 15:37:33 EDT