Comments on: How do you like them apples? http://listics.com/20061022679 The Internet has a great future behind it... --Jon Crowcroft Sat, 13 Mar 2010 18:51:45 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 By: David Weinberger http://listics.com/20061022679/comment-page-1#comment-6314 David Weinberger Fri, 27 Oct 2006 22:09:34 +0000 http://listics.com/20061022679#comment-6314 One of the ways of taking "Faithful Interpretation" is to assume that one of the questions it raises halfway through in fact helped generate the entire book. (I wouldn't presume to know if that's how AKMA's thought process actually worked.) AKMA looks at the incompatible ways serious and thoughtful scholars have interpreted any particular Biblical text. How, AKMA wonders, can he let himself be put in the position of saying that person B,C...Z are wrong when they are in fact so smart and devout? But, that's exactly the "game" the usual view of interpretation demands of us. If meaning is _in_ a text, then those who fail to unearth it are wrong. If person A is right, then B-Z are wrong and mistaken. Similarly, AKMA notices that it seems to be an empirical fact that we are never all going to agree on even the rudimentary principles of Biblical interpretation. Do we treat the text as an historical accounting, as myth, etc.? We've had 2,000 years or so to agree on this, and it hasn't happened. We should accept this, AKMA says. So, on the basis of love and empiricism, AKMA looks for another way to understand the text and to respect those devoted to interpreting it. That's what I think "Faithful Interpretation" is about. (He also deals with how to avoid having to say "Everyone is right and no one is ever wrong.") Those same impulses guide "What is pomo biblical criticism?" as well, I believe, although I don't think he expresses them explicitly. (It's been a while since I read it.) One of the ways of taking “Faithful Interpretation” is to assume that one of the questions it raises halfway through in fact helped generate the entire book. (I wouldn’t presume to know if that’s how AKMA’s thought process actually worked.) AKMA looks at the incompatible ways serious and thoughtful scholars have interpreted any particular Biblical text. How, AKMA wonders, can he let himself be put in the position of saying that person B,C…Z are wrong when they are in fact so smart and devout? But, that’s exactly the “game” the usual view of interpretation demands of us. If meaning is _in_ a text, then those who fail to unearth it are wrong. If person A is right, then B-Z are wrong and mistaken.

Similarly, AKMA notices that it seems to be an empirical fact that we are never all going to agree on even the rudimentary principles of Biblical interpretation. Do we treat the text as an historical accounting, as myth, etc.? We’ve had 2,000 years or so to agree on this, and it hasn’t happened. We should accept this, AKMA says.

So, on the basis of love and empiricism, AKMA looks for another way to understand the text and to respect those devoted to interpreting it. That’s what I think “Faithful Interpretation” is about. (He also deals with how to avoid having to say “Everyone is right and no one is ever wrong.”)

Those same impulses guide “What is pomo biblical criticism?” as well, I believe, although I don’t think he expresses them explicitly. (It’s been a while since I read it.)

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