From: Carl W. Conrad (cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu)
Date: Fri Apr 17 1998 - 17:33:51 EDT
I'm sorry that I have not followed this lengthy series of exchanges that
has been carried on over the past week or two under various subject
headers, but it has clearly snowballed at some point into a very
thinly-disguised theological "debate" wherein it is not really individual
passages themselves that are the central focus of investigation but the
stances that interpretations of those passages support--or don't support. A
VERY inordinate portion of the correspondence has involved lengthy
citations of what others have said, and particularly what others who are
not even list-members have said. It would be strange, considering the
extent to which authorities are being cited against each other and snippets
of works are being quoted directly without any clear indication at all that
they are being cited in their proper context--under those circumstances it
would be strange if misrepresentation of the views of one or more persons
did NOT occur. At this point I don't want to mention names, but I think
several involved in this thread have contributed to an acrimonious
undertone to the exchanges and a readiness, intentional or not, to
undermine the reputation for integrity and impugn the motives of other
parties involved in the exchange. I think it was time to call a halt to
this several days ago, and I did mean to issue a warning a couple of days
ago when I wrote:
At 12:01 PM -0500 4/14/98, Carl W. Conrad wrote:
>To all involved in this thread and the Granville-Sharpe thread, etc., I
>want to insist that if this discussion is to continue at all, it must focus
>exclusively on the Greek texts in question and what those texts may
>legitimately be shown to mean. This is not the place to argue for or
>against anyone's particular conception of what is orthodox theological
>thinking.
Some of the more provocative posts preceded my note of 4/14, but they were
more of them after, composed for the sake of clarifying one's own position,
of course, but with more citations and subtle insinuations that come close
to being ad hominem attacks if they don't quite fall directly into that
category. It should be evident to everyone involved that this is not
constructive.
Let's call a final halt to this discussion and its by-products; it has
ceased to be illuminating but has definitely become an annoyance.
Carl W. Conrad
Co-Chair, B-Greek List
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