Future scholarship- history
The study of texts depending on the approach taken involves in one way or the other a study of the world behind the text, of the texts, or infront of the text (of the reader). keen readers of biblical texts are involved in study of history at some point.
McClymer contibute to our undertanding of how the "collaborative, multimediated, networked, nonlinear, and multi-accented environment" enable a new way of studying history.
Whatever part of the history of the text we choose to study, "the evidence comes in a wide array of forms.... we know there are crucial missing pieces."
The space, economic and like factors of the print cunlture force us to choose which part of the evidence is more appropriate and discard the others. We are unable to give the other evidence in full except maybe refer our readers to other sources- in footnotes, endnotes or an attached summary.
Though speaking of history as a discpline, I agree with McClymer that any form of history requires a "high degree of flexibility". Others we wrongly assume history to be a well- structured field. Leave alone the fact that choosing of what is appropriate or what goes to the print is coloured with many ideologies and biases.
The digital culture through tools like links enable the historian to give all the collected evidence and maybe help the readers understand his/her choice of which is appropriate.
McClymer contibute to our undertanding of how the "collaborative, multimediated, networked, nonlinear, and multi-accented environment" enable a new way of studying history.
Whatever part of the history of the text we choose to study, "the evidence comes in a wide array of forms.... we know there are crucial missing pieces."
The space, economic and like factors of the print cunlture force us to choose which part of the evidence is more appropriate and discard the others. We are unable to give the other evidence in full except maybe refer our readers to other sources- in footnotes, endnotes or an attached summary.
Though speaking of history as a discpline, I agree with McClymer that any form of history requires a "high degree of flexibility". Others we wrongly assume history to be a well- structured field. Leave alone the fact that choosing of what is appropriate or what goes to the print is coloured with many ideologies and biases.
The digital culture through tools like links enable the historian to give all the collected evidence and maybe help the readers understand his/her choice of which is appropriate.
2 Comments:
yeah, the way forward is in learning to think and (live) in history, to borrow a phrase from historian Carl Schorske,
"thinking with history implies the employment of the material of the past and the configuarations in which we organise and comprehend them orient ourselves in the living present."
Take New Testament, it has its own history, it is more than the history behind the text and more than the history within which the text was generated.
It is also the history of the text's transmission and the history of its reception including its inclusion in the Christian Canon.
These all impinge on the significance of this text within those communities who regard this text as integral to their history.
Yet one can say the gap separating us from biblical text and biblical text from us, to a point it less historical and far more theological.
Therefore the crucial missing pieces of hsitory do not matter(to a point).
For sure the literature of the Bible conveys information but it also evokes response and so the intention of the text is fundamental to how we construe the theolgical interests of Scripture.
Digital culture through tools also enables different exegetical approaches.
Thanks "the dawn"- what would be some of those exegetical approaches?
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