Re: Mounce

From: Carl W. Conrad (cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu)
Date: Wed Dec 01 1999 - 09:14:39 EST


At 7:56 AM -0600 12/1/99, A K M Adam wrote:
>George,
>
>>Sometimes, it would be refreshingly transparent if one were to say:
>>"Of the two possible treatments of this Greek construction, I choose
>>approach "a" because it is in keeping with my other doctrinal
>>understandings.
>
>I'm trying to carve out a niche in the debate over hermeneutics that
>allows for just this option--but (as you no doubt well know) one can
>hardly overestimate the inclination of biblical interpreters to think
>that being right is insufficient--they must be conclusively,
>exclusively, indubitably right.
>
>I can't do that--it just seems to me that I disagree with enough
>people who are smarter and wiser than I am, that I have to say, "I'm
>convinced that I'm right--but Burton Mack (or Bill Mounce or W. D.
>Davies) has very good reasons for thinking what he thinks. I'm just
>not convinced."
>
>Of course, scholars constantly observe your injunction--in reverse.
>"Goolde upholds this position because it best fits his theology
>[whereas *I*, implicitly, have reached my opposing conclusion based
>on unfettered reason]."

Interesting observations, bearing very well on the reason(s)--the very D _
_ N good reasons--why we endeavor to steer clear of discussion of
hermeneutical presuppositions and principles on B-Greek: this is precisely
the area where just about anybody who enters the list has an ox of his/her
own to be gored. Sweet, pacific, meek, but very righteous Christians seem
so very eager to offer up the blood of their theological foes upon the
altar not of their own Lord but of their own brand of orthodoxy. Some have
attempted to derive this behavior from a zealous interpretation of the
first commandment, but whencesoever it derives, let us please avoid such
(un)holy wars on B-Greek!

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics/Washington University
One Brookings Drive/St. Louis, MO, USA 63130/(314) 935-4018
Home: 7222 Colgate Ave./St. Louis, MO 63130/(314) 726-5649
cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu

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