Non-masturbatory Discussion of Context

Great Debates
1

In this BBQ Pit thread, the idea of interpreting scripture (specifically Christian gospel) in terms of the key commandments of Christ and the full historical context of each scriptural verse is being critiqued, and a poster who practices this form of scriptural analysis is being criticized for “inconsistencies”. In this GD thread, I’d like to separate the eminently arguable critique of methodology from the attack on the poster, and allow the OP of the Pit thread and his supporters to articulate their logical objections free of any obligations they may feel to denigrate that poster and the religion he practices. --Since they are congratulating themselves in that thread for the soundness –indeed, the “infallibility” and “water-tight[ness]”—of their argument, this should not present them much difficulty. And I hope to be able to give these people, who have declared that reason is the method by which they intend to apprehend their universe, some examples of the actual operation and maintenance of the only tool they’ve allowed themselves for the task.

So to begin, a description is called for of what we’ve been calling in the other thread “contextual analysis” for want of a more scholarly term. (And if anyone can supply such a term, please help assuage my ignorance, that’s what we’re here for. I’m not sure “exegesis” fully connotes the type of exposition we’re talking about.)

To a committed Christian, Jesus Christ is God made man, who comes to us to deliver a new covenant and whose words convey the particulars of each person’s relationship and obligations to God, to themself and to other persons. [To Christians,] Jesus is Lord, and the supreme authority for those relationships and for moral instruction; thus all scripture must be tested against his words. The idea of the Chrisitian religion in large part is to create a dwelling place for the living Christ in one’s heart; however, in order to apply the logic of Christ to previous scripture, the committed Christian must pay close attention to his words of authority as recorded by the imperfect methods of imperfect men.

This attention to the word of the Lord requires interpretation, which can be done individually either through appeal to earthly authority (clergy, church doctrine, etc.) or through personal scholarship. Honestly pursued scholarship compels the committed Christian to study the languages spoken by Christ and those with whom he had discourse, the regional and cultural idioms employed during that discourse, the social, geographical and political allusions contained within the lessons of Christ, and the specific situations associated with the delivery of each lesson.

In short, individual scholarship attempts to guide understanding of Christ’s authority by study of the meaning of his utterances to the early first-century audience which received and recorded them, and to use that understanding religiously through application of their contextual meaning to all preceding scripture.

Now, the objections to this expository method, as I understand them, are as follows. (If I leave any out, or if in my lack of discernment I’ve butchered the subtle logic of any of the arguments, I trust one of the Pit thread participants will correct my abuses.)[ol][li]A plain reading of many scriptural passages conveys pronouncements and commands which are inconsistent with the principles attributed to Christ [by specific Christians].[]Cited contextual interpretations of some of Christ’s remarks conflict with a more direct interpretation of those remarks.[]A Christian’s belief in the divinity and infallibility of Christ prohibits that Christian from rejecting any statement attributed to Christ in gospel.[]Said belief in Christ’s infallibility also prohibits “creative” interpretations which produce a meaning not contained in Christ’s words as uttered.[]Since all personal interpretation is colored by the individual’s cultural biases, interpretation of scripture beyond its literal meaning is largely invalidated by those biases.[/ol]As stated before, these may not completely convey all of the objections stated in the other thread, but I’m afraid I lack the wit to find any additional crystalline nuggets of wisdom within the copious amounts of less deseribale material contained in that thread.[/li]
In my next post, I’ll attempt to answer these objections, and I invite my esteemed antagonists to mercilessly dissect my logic and to further deconstruct the notion of the necessity of context to Christian understanding. I also invite any who are so inclined to participate in the procontextual side of the discussion.

2

If the objections listed are valid, I believe they should apply to any comparable type of theological analysis, and in fact the exercise of those objections to a non-Christian theology might help to throw their strengths or weaknesses in a less emotionally charged (to American theists and atheists), more dispassionate light. In the other thread, I gave the example of a statement from Gandhi, and the ways in which one might attempt to understand that statement. I’d like to expand on that here, and subject my analysis to the objections above, but first, I suppose I must construct a comparable theological framework from which to interpret Mr. Gandhi.

For this argument, let’s imagine that I am not only a devoted student of the life and works of Mohandas K. Gandhi, but I am also a devoted Hindu who believes that the Mahatma is the final avatar of Vishnu, and that his writings and deeds during his incarnation on earth are sacrosanct and infallible. Further, I’ve joined the nascent religion of Mahatmism[sup]1[/sup], the precepts of which are that the Mahatma’s greatest commandment is nonviolence, the Mahatma provides the truth of our relationship to Brahma and that relationship is fully defined only through the practice of ahimsa and through attention to the Mahatma’s instruction.

As a devoted Mahatmist, I know it’s my duty to obey the instruction of Gandhi to the limits of my understanding. So I begin to learn all I can about the incarnate god, starting with the life history of M. K. Gandhi. I learn the languages he used, and I study his many writings in their original published form. In all my readings of the Bhagavad Gita and other Hindu texts, I attempt to apply my evolving understanding of Gandhi’s lessons, using them to inform and guide my understanding of the Hindu worldview. Many of the Mahatma’s lessons are difficult for me, and many of his statements seem to convey ideas which I believe may be in conflict with the practice of ahimsa. Because of these seeming contradictions, I return to the troubling passages and I learn everything about the circumstances from which they were produced by Gandhi. Over time, I find that all of his teachings can be reconciled with ahimsa through such a contextual approach to understanding.

Now let’s apply the listed objections to my scenario:

Objection 1: Truly, some of the language of Hindu moral teaching and mythology seems to conflict with the Mahatma’s teachings. If I am to be consistent in my beliefs, should I reject the Hindu teachings?

My reply: Consistency requires that, where my understanding of Hindu textual instruction conflicts with my understanding of the Mahatma, I must try to reconcile the two, and wherever I fail in this understanding, to follow the Mahatma and to practice ahimsa.
Objection 2: If I am to practice ahimsa, how am I also to believe such pronouncements of Gandhi as “Far better than cowardice is to kill, and to be killed in battle.”? Doesn’t this invalidate one or the other?

My reply: Consistency compels me to seek contextual understanding of that remark, and indeed such an understanding reveals no conflict with Gandhi’s supreme commandment.
Objection 3: If a writing or comment of Gandhi is revealed to me which conflicts with my understanding of the Mahatma, may I reject it as improbable or untrue?

My reply: Consistency allows me to remain puzzled, unsure or uncommitted to those puzzles, but also compels me to work toward understanding, and to seek guidance to further my understanding.
Objection 4: Does my trust in the truth of all of the Mahatma’s teachings prohibit my individual interpretation of his writings?

My reply: My trust is in the Mahatma; not in my own interpretations. I must follow his supreme commandment, practice ahimsa, and seek understanding. My interpretation of all of his works is guided by that understanding, and where I fail to fully understand a particular lesson, consistency demands that such failure never be at the cost of the supreme commandment or the practice of ahimsa.
Objection 5: Do my modern liberal sensibilities determine or affect to a great extent my interpretations of Gandhi’s words or of Hindu scripture?

My reply: My modern liberal sensibilities are informed and colored by my understanding of Gandhi, and in turn color my interpretation of sacred texts. This is the practical definition of consistency.

[sup]1[/sup][sub]The author has constructed Mahatmism as a fictional religion. Any resemblance to any actual religion is purely a result of the author’s ignorance, and is not intended to offend. The fictional Mahatmism within this post is offered with the deepest of respect for Mohandas K. Gandhi and his philosophy of nonviolence.[/sub]

3

I am not one of your “esteemed antagonists” in the other thread, but I believe the problem with this thread is that you are beginning right off the bat by misrepresenting the entire nature of your opponents’ arguments. As far as I can see, no one is in fact denying that the method that you describe here is the correct one, so all your “objections” and responses to the objections miss the point and skew the argument.

The actual argument being made is that the “poster who practices this form of scriptural analysis”, and others like him, are not in fact following this form of scriptural analysis, or any other form of scriptural analysis, other than their own personal beliefs. IOW, it is not that he looks at things in the context of their times and audience etc. and concludes that such-and-such is the correct interpretation - rather that he looks for things that support his worldview and buys into whatever interpretation - literal or non-literal - happens to serve his purpose in the case at hand. Coming up with all sorts of “context of the times” interpretations is merely one sweeping sweeping and powerful tool that allows him to do this, but the assertion is being made that these interpretations are being primarily driven by the desired end-product, rather than dispassionately by the evidence.

In support of this - and I’m on a bit shakier ground here as I’m not that familiar with the NT source material - is the assertion that many of these context interpretations don’t actually seem to fit the context of the times at all, and actually seem rather weak. So the idea is that they are being bought into in an attempt at rationalization.

But again, no one is objecting to the general idea that you have to look at things in the context of their intended audience. A rather basic and simple concept. I really think you should actually find someone who has actually denied this concept before trying to insert this into the mouths of your esteemed antagonists.

4

What amount and sort of data would cause a Mahamist to stop following Mahatma and reject his/her faith?

If they found that the young Mahatma visited brothels whilst a student in England?
Do you reject the information as false, because brothels are sinful according to the older Hindu religion, and dissagree with your own moral principals. Even though its sources are as good as for any other information on Mohatma.
Do you cast this new information in a light you find more pleasing. There was no report of Mohatma actually using the services of any of the ladies in the brothel, maybe he was just there to teach the sinners.
Do you call the new information a ‘mystery’ and create a belief that Mohatma had to sin in order to be able to become sinless. Maybe you can introduce a practice of asperant Mahatmists visiting and indulging in sin in their youth to better be able to become wise and seek sinlessness.

If there is found a writing from the time of Mahatma possibly in Mahatma’s own hand, which states that Mahatma said he was not an avatar of Vishnu?
Do you call the writing false, despite it having apparently better provanence than most of the other officail scriptures from the time.
Do you claim that when it was written, the people were not ready to know that Mahatma was an avatar, and so he was mearly hiding his true being, and not lieing at all.
Do you claim, this just proves we were wrong in thinking Mahatma was an avatar of Vishnu. Actually he was
a) Vishnu in complete incarnation, not a mere avatar.
b) An avatar of Krishna, and that Krishna is actually the greatest of the old Hindu gods.

With every piece of evidence, we have a choice how we use it. And the choice we make is dependent on who we are more than on the quality of the evidence.

5

No, that’s an actual repeated assertion for which no substantiation has been offered. I can’t answer such an assertion, as it would require “proving” that the poster who practices etc. is not lying when he says that’s what he practices. In addition, every one of the objections I’ve listed was offered in that thread, and the argument-by-assertion you’ve mentioned is actually objection # 5 above.

That would be a much stronger argument were any non-literal counter interpretation offered, or were the objector to provide evidence that the contextual interpretation offered is based on faulty historical data. I didn’t notice anything like that from the OP over there, or even any attempt to do so.

I’m unsure what the relevance of that question is to the validity of contextual analysis. But in any case, I guess it would depend on the individual Mahatmist, wouldn’t it?

In this case, I go with the Mahatma’s actual written explanations and confessions. He was quite forthcoming about his own sins. As a dedicated Mahatmist, I would probably consider the sins of the young Gandhi in the context of his later rejection of such sins, and take the lesson from that.

As stated, I’d consider the writing in the context of the Mahatma’s supreme commandment and try and puzzle it out. Maybe I’d fail. Honesty and consistency would dictate that I attempt to understand it. In the Hindu mythological context (and I’m hardly an expert here, so bear with me), I’m not sure that an avatar would know for sure that he was the incarnation of a deity! (Do you have such a denial by Christ, btw?)

Which means that every individual choice is open to specific criticism on its logical bases. (What a concept.) Doesn’t invalidate an algorithm to question its inputs.

6

This type of thing is difficult to substantiate. The form in which it was presented was a challenge to show why he accepts certain beliefs as literal and real and dismisses others as allegorical or contextual. If the pattern of these closely fits the pattern of what matches what he prefers to accept, that would be some evidence that this is the driving force behind the “contextual interpretation”. If on the other hand it can be shown that there are compelling reasons to interpret some as being contextual and the others as being literal, other than the fact that he happens to prefer it to end up this way, then he would be consistently following an approach.

You don’t have to prove anything. Frankly, you don’t have to start this thread. But if you do, you should address the actual argument being made, rather than making up your own and then refuting it.

I must have missed them. Certainly they were not the main thrust of the arguments. Perhaps you can show some links.

That is not correct. Your objection #5, as you presented it here, is that it is impossible to objectively determine context and therefore the contextual method is to be rejected. What others are saying is that it may be very possible, but that does not mean that everyone who is claiming to be doing so is in fact doing this.

Maybe you skipped those parts. One example would be the argument over divorce - whether a contextual reading of the scripture supports the notion that the ban was only put forth in defense of women so as not to allow them to be tossed out.

I think there were others as well.

Again, I would like to see you cite the people who are allegedly claiming that you can’t interpret words in the context of their times and intended audiences. This is an absurd notion, and I am skeptical as to whether you can find someone making such a claim. Let’s see.

7

[Tim Allen]Rrrrmnmnmn?[/Tim Allen] Is there something about “largely invalidated” that connotes impossibility to you? The argument, such as it is, from the Pit thread is that the poster’s interpretations are so colored by his cultural and political identity that they are… largely invalidated.

Was there contextual information offered to refute the poster’s interpretation, and in support of a different reading? If so, I did miss it, and I apologize. Was evidence offered to dispute the scholarship underlying the contested interpretation? Conversely, was evidence offered to substantiate (there’s that word again) the supposition that it was the poster’s cultural prejudices, rather than poor scholarship, that produced the interpretation being disputed? Was evidence offered to call the poster’s scholarship into question in general? As I said, a weak argument.

You’re right; it is an absurd notion. And in fact, the argument is that you can’t apply such interpretation to theological questions. (See the listed objections above. Really.) Still absurd, though. And in the absence of any substantive critiques of any of the poster-who-practices-etc.'s interpretations, the criticism does seem to boil down to a frustrated disagreement with the poster-who’s contextual resolution of “religious inconsistencies” rather than any refutation of same.

8

For some reason, the link isn’t working for me.

If someone else is having the same problem, the link is:
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=220165

Tinker

9

Thanks, Tinker!

For Izzy R, here’s some quotes from the Pit thread:

And here’s a nutshell description of the whole pseudo-argument.

Those are the three principles of the BBQ Pit thread. You can doubt that their argument is really against contextual analysis itself all you want, but I’ll let you be the one to call them liars.

10

You are quibbling over unimportant and irrelevant issues. The difference between “largely invalidated” and impossibility is not important. Change my previous post to say “largely invalidated” if it makes you happy. Point remains. The argument is NOT that the general concept of context is “largely invalidated”. The argument is that this particular poster, and others who share his viewpoint, are in this particular area of scholarship putting forth interpretations that are largely invalid.

Try this:

  1. The contextual method is largely invalidated.
  2. Your particular contextual analysis is largely invalid.

Two completely different concepts.

As for your quotes from the Pit thread, I don’t see where you take any support from the first or third quote. They are clearly along the lines of 2) above, not 1). The Kalhoun quote is ambiguous.

Well there was no scholarship offered in support of this, so there was nothing to refute. But I think the evidence offered in opposition was the fact that even a woman who had been divorced was banned from remarrying, which did not support the notion that the entire ban was to help women avoid being cast off.

It is not reasonable to ask that someone go into someone else’s head and produce evidence of why a particular argument was being offered. As I said earlier, the evidence is in the larger pattern - the fact that these contextual analyses tend to pop up whenever needed to save the holder from accepting part of the beliefs that are unpalatable. And that there tends to be no other clear evidence for these interpretations.

No scholarship was provided, as above.

11

Um…I don’t think I actually said that. I think I was quoting someone else. Godzilla maybe? Shit. I wish I was that good! :slight_smile:

12

Got it. And I agree the Pit thread was couched in terms of 2), but the crux of the thread, by my contextual interpretation of those quotes, was 1). A reading of the posts in full supports this.

OK, I’m going to stop taking you at your word for what I missed in that thread, because “poster-who” most certainly supported his interpretation with scholarship. Are you sure you read the whole thread?

Who’s asking for that? What I’m asking for is any form of substantiation for the assertion, which would necessarily involve real scholarship on the part of the critic. (No mystery, then, why we haven’t seen such substantiation.)

So then show where contextual analysis is not used where the literal meaning of the verse happens to be palatable to the interpreter, or show how such analysis of verses the interpreter finds to be happy-friendly are less rigorous. Otherwise, you’ve merely made another snarky assertion.

Not sure what you mean here. Does “no clear evidence” mean “open to interpretation”? Kind of an obvious statement. Do you mean “no objective support”? Then show that the contextual cites are not valid. Should be easy, eh?

13

I’m not sure that “the idea of interpreting scripture (specifically Christian gospel) in terms of the key commandments of Christ and the full historical context of each scriptural verse” was being considered invalid or inconsistent.
Instead “the idea of interpreting only those verses that seem to run contrary to a particular belief in Christ’s relationship to man and God using whatever historical context can be found to explain away those contrary verses” is what is being seen to be inconsistent and invalid.

It’s Gandhi mistreating his wife, being ‘spun’ to saying that Gandhi insisted on strict following of Hindu practices within his family. It’s Gandhi’s failure to destroy apartheid in South Africa, which is at question.
Sure a Mahatmist who believes Gandhi is just a man can explain these as human failings. Christianity doesn’t have that luxury, Christ was God, of the same power and same authority. How could a Mahatmist who saw Gandhi as the absolute all powerful God, explain him visiting a Brothel for pleasure (or perhaps under peer pressure), or walking away from South Africa.

14

You’re absolutely right. You were quoting godzillatemple. My apologies.

The question of course is whether the criticism you quoted was “that good” as a snide bullshit comment, or “that good” as a logical objection. I believe I’ve already offered my opinion.

15

A standard but nebulous argument. “They said X but I know they really meant Y, so I’m going to challenge them to defend Y”.

I think so. I’m not aware of what you are referring to as the scholarship. But the assertion that the ban on divorce was an attempt to save women from being cast off had no basis that I can recall. It was just a free-floating possibility that maybe he might have meant that - there are no indicators that he actually meant that.

As I said earlier, it is the pattern that shows this.

Well the assertion, repeated again and again, is that all descriptions of a loving God, or any other depiction of values that are consistent with secular humanist values, are automatically taken literally and at face value, and elevated to be the central teachings of the religion. I think this should qualify.

See above re divorce. But FWIW, I’ll toss in that the notion that the ban against homosexual sex was a result of the authors of the Bible not comprehending the concept of a mutual and loving gay relationship is also completely unsupported.

16

You fellows keep asserting that inconvenient scriptural conflicts are being “explained” away. I await an argument in support of that assertion. It’s those verses which “seem to run contrary” to Christ’s love which absolutely require interpretation by a devout Christian. If you’re gonna refute any particular interpretations, then get on with it. Be sure and reference source material where necessary, thanks.

But so far all you’re expressing is skepticism of the motives behind contextual interpretation.

Through contextual analysis, perhaps? Remember that part about starting from the supreme commandment and working back? In the case of Gandhi we have real, contemporary explanations from the man himself, less than a century old, so it’s easy In the case of Christ, we have the reports of his flawed, human disciples from two millenia ago. Requires a bit more work to understand.

17

Don’t be so hard on yourself, it’s not that bad. Your argument is “they said X, but I challenge you to prove they meant it.”

No, unless you can demonstrate that these central teachings of Christianity, expressed I might add by most Christian theologians (hint: that’s what got them “elevated to be the central teachings of the religion”), are derived from modern thought in some bizarre cross-temporal fashion, that qualifies only as evidence that they are not inconsistent with secular humanist values.

Suprise! I agree that such a supposition is "poster-who"s personal opinion, unsupportable due to the impossibility of proving the comprehension levels of long-dead prophets. However, I believe he’s supported that opinion voluminously in these forums in terms of Christ’s “central teachings” — probably more so than any other opinion he’s offered!

18

xenophon41:

I’m not quite sure what you’re asking for xeno, it seems you’re so desperate to prove us wrong that you’re manufacturing arguments to battle us on.

Or in other words I second everything IzzyR said, and based how he has characterized my arguments in the past I’ll probably second everything he is going to say.

That said I’m really not sure where you are coming from. Thus if you are only here to defend Polycarp’s “contextual analysis” then I think you should ask him to speak for himself as he is the only one who knows where his analysis came from.

If however, you have done your own contextual analysis then I encourage you to put forward your beliefs regarding the nature of god/Jesus and the accuracy of the bible/gospels in reporting them his teachings. If not I don’t see much to encourage my participation as thus far I find your arguments a little abstract and discombobulated and to make matters worse, quite dull.

19

xeno
Izzy is 100% correct. You’re just shadow-boxing here. I’m sure you’d like to discuss the “arguments” outlined in your OP, but the real thrust of that thread was much simpler and far more thought-provoking. It was probably best summed up in the following post.

**

The argument isn’t that that you can’t “properly” interpret scriptures or even, really, that the scriptures aren’t “true.” The argument is that many people don’t interpret scriptures. They just find what they need to justify what they already think and then work backwards to justify why that interpretation must be the correct one.

The most obvious example of this, in my opinion, is the liberal christian take on divorce. It’s pretty obvious to the disinterested observer that divorce is expressly considered a big Bozo no-no. Yet, many modern churches do some frankly embarrassing mental gymnastics in order to permit their congregations to divorce and remarry.

So, Xeno, perhaps you ought to address what most everyone agrees was the strongest argument in that thread and forget the rest for the moment. If you refuse to do so, there isn’t really any point in this thread.

20

Well, since badchad has placed his argument in the hands of IzzyR, and since Truth Seeker agrees with Izzy that I’m off base, I’ll address those two in more detail. (Also, if Bippy thinks I’ve given short shrift to those questions-to-the-Mahatmist, I’m prepared to put that hat back on and give him/her a more complete response. Let me know, B.)

First, let me return to Izzy’s argument (since he was the first respondent to this thread). Izzy says:

I agreed that the criticism has been presented largely in terms of the supposed “incorrectness” of Poly’s interpretations (let’s drop the anonymity; he’s right in the title of the other thread anyway). However, the whole theme of that thread, from the OP’s side, was that those interpretations are inconsistent with the meanings the OP found unpalatable. The assertion was made that all interpretations made by Christians which test offensive verses against the central teachings of Christianity are interpretations of convenience, and not honestly derived.

Now, leaving aside for now the question of whether any equally rigorous counteranalysis was offered to refute the questionable interpretations, the charge is a general charge against Christian exegesis. The OP, from a standpoint which is frankly antagonistic to Christianity, tells Christians that they cannot honestly apply their Lord’s own central tenets to their understanding of their own religion!

That, Izzy, in case you’ve still failed to connect the dots, is a general indictment of contextual analysis as a technique available for Christian exegesis. The OP’s thesis is that such analysis, when used by Christians to understand their religious texts, is not valid.

Still think I’m constructing straw warriors to fight? Well, somebody is, and I’ll get to that in the next post, as I address the “strongest argument” cited by Truth Seeker.