From: Percer, Leo (Leo_Percer@baylor.edu)
Date: Thu Apr 11 2002 - 16:47:07 EDT
I agree that this topic is at least tangentially related to what we do
here, and as a result, I'll offer some (hopefully helpful) comments.
> I took a trip this week across town to the SPU library and
> dragged (hauled)
> home the recently published 1,500 page 1Cor by A.C.
> Theiselton (NIGTC,
> Eerdmans 2000).
First comment, is it me or are commentaries getting to be really, really
large (almost insanely so). Even before the inclusion of e-text in
materials (which Clay is lamenting to some degree), some commentaries
were running inordinately long. The Eerdmans Critical Commentary on
Philemon by Barth and Blanke, for example, is over 500 pages long for a
NT letter that is a scant 25 verses long! Of course, one of the hazards
of scholarship is the desire to include as much "relevant" information
as possible in discussing every possible aspect of the text, but does
anyone else find it strange that it takes us over 500 pages to explain
what Onesimus, Paul, and Philemon understood in a mere 25 verse letter?
Ah well, weightier matters await us, no?
> The purpose here is not to trash the NIGTC volume on 1Cor. I
> am raising a
> question about what e-texts are doing to the perceived value
> of information.
> The inevitable side affect of all this information only a
> mouse click away
> is that the information itself becomes commonplace. The
> perceived value of
> it becomes seriously discounted. When I see some information
> cited from an
> electronic source, I am tempted to say "so what?"
> Particularly when the
> citation is not accompanied by any additional analysis.
I want to know why you feel this way Clay. Why does the presence of
easily accessible text somehow discount the value of it? I mean, the
Bible in English is readily available here in TX, yet commentators
continue to cite it in their commentaries. Mind you, I'm not attacking
Clay here, and I am erecting a straw man to argue with--these things
I'll acknowledge. My problem here is with the assumption that widely
available materials are somehow less important than those that are not
readily available. So, the scholars among us who can read Russian have
an advantage of some sort in reading Tolstoy maybe, since the Russian
versions are less accessible? Doesn't this attitude imply at least some
sort of scholarly gnosticism that indicates our "elite" status to handle
the "mysterious" texts? Let me put it this way, even though some
versions of the Early Church Writers and non-canonical texts are readily
available on the Internet (and some are even linked on my personal web
page), that doesn't mean that they are not valuable, right? Did I
misunderstand your perspective here, Clay? If so, please let me know,
because I didn't see the same problem here that you did.
> However, I have become aware that it is not is a significant
> contribution to
> just throw some text at someone. And the e-text age has made this a
> temptation that is difficult to resist.
I agree with this last statement. Simply citing a text doesn't make it
worthwhile to the conversation necessarily. I am reading a book now
written by the editor of Charisma magazine, J. Lee Grady, entitled "Ten
Lies the Church has told Women." While I agree with many of the
conclusions and premises that Grady utilizes, I am shocked to see him
quote "original" sources from folks like Martin Luther or John Calvin,
but instead of telling me the work from which this material comes, Grady
cites a citation in another work on the topic of women in the church.
He also, by the way, utilizes multiple e-texts and references (many of
which are cited better than some of his "quotations"). Now, I don't
discount the value of what Grady says, but I do question his sources
when I am unable to trace them to their source for the most part. Is
that the problem with e-texts, Clay, or have I totally misunderstood
your position? Mind you, I have just spent the afternoon in the hot
Texas sun playing with my children, so I may not be comprehending the
problem well. Again, this note is not a criticism of Clay, but a
request for clarification. Please?
Yours, but mostly His,
Leo Percer
Baylor University
Waco, TX
http://www3.baylor.edu/~Leo_Percer
Romans 8:28
Eeyore-"Beware of ideas others come up with for rescuing you from the
river, especially if they involve dropping a heavy stone right on you."
Mortimer Caplin (Time magazine, Feb. 1, 1963)-"There is one difference
between a tax collector and a taxidermist: a taxidermist leaves the
hide."
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