Maestroh
15th May 2010, 11:36 AM
Well this semester really took it out of me. Don't know if it's because I'm forty or because Wallace actually treats a Master's program like a doctorate program (no criticism intended). I had to collate 30 chapters of manuscripts against the 2005 Robinson-Pierpont Majority Text. Fortunately - supposedly - since my two mss were Byzantine (ANA 98, which is on file at CSNTM and Codex Alexandrinus) for the most part, much of my frustration came from such things as movable nus and the nomina sacrum.
OK, for those who have not heard.
I will be interning this year for Wallace under the auspices both of Dallas Theological Seminary and the Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts. I was at the recent fundraiser where the guest speaker was Lee Strobel. I get an email a day (minimum usually) from Wallace or the crew. I do not feel comfortable giving out info because some of it is confidential at this time, and I don't want to mix up which info is which.
We have also decided that my Master's thesis is going to be on the manuscripts that underlie I John 5:7. I'll get you more specifics as time goes by. I think I'm going to do an examination of common words and trace some of the lines of genealogy, but we'll just see.
I haven't been online much and to tell you the truth, I don't miss it. I think the Christian discussion board has become a Neanderthal form of communication because not much communicating goes on. Much of what goes on is little more than posturing and avoiding answering tough questions about one's own faith. The more I look the less it surprises me anymore that Christians really don't take a long, hard look at themselves and their views.
Too much of what goes on is posturing, and the Net is another in the long line of shallow forms of entertainment and communication that enables someone to say pretty much anything and have no consequences for it. Consider as just one example the Word-Faith board at CARM.
I simply do not understand how some of those folks can look themselves in the mirror. Some of them MUST know that what they are spouting is little more a scriptural interpretation that became a mantra after Hagin claimed Jesus revealed the true interpretation to him. And I think their discomfort level explains the long list of things that get thrown in and have nothing to do with anything.
There are a few posters I like. I think Swordsman 53 posts here as well. I think his name is Bob. And he is an Arminian whose arguments - even where I disagree - are solidly made and he's kind for the most part. He's certainly a lot more tolerant towards some people than I'm capable of being - or at least used to. I've gotten a thicker skin in part because DTS is being overrun by Arminians. OK, that IS an exaggeration but not by much. Last fall I took Ecclesiology and the prof had us share our backgrounds in the first paper. He stated that every semester we get more Methodists at DTS. I would assume those are pretty much all Arminians.
But the Christian church as a whole is lazy. I find this in Sunday School and other places. Rather than search and get their hearts and spirits both opened and split open, the easy thing to do is just ask the pastor. For some reason there is an assumption that the pastor is the functional equivalent of a modern pope in Protestant circles.
And too many side issues drive the entire thing. I know people who do their textual criticism as well as their text wrestling based solely on the principle of inerrancy. As a consequence they rule out some possibilities immediately. Why? Well because if that's true then something else is thereby false. I think it's a wrong way to do theology. Another is the mantra of 'faith alone.' I don't know how many of you have ever been around a so-called 'Free Grace' church, but I've been in one now for years. I didn't know Free Grace was (is) a distinctive brand of theology. I just thought every Christian church believed in 'free grace.' But they have a pet peeve, their enemy 'lordship salvation.' And I'm sick and tired of the argument because most of it involves a misunderstanding of the opposing position.
The same can be said - imho to a greater level - on the A-C debate that has gone on ad nauseum for thousands of years with the combatants no closer to each other than they used to be. You will note my postings on that board are rare. That's because I watch most of the combatants on both sides twist the words of their theological opponents and - in many cases - simply assert a straw man caricature to the opponent. I put up a post two years ago pleading for a more irenic tone. What did I get? With the exception of Pavkovic, the Arminians were mostly receptive and kind. Some of the Calvinists were but others continued the ridiculous insistence that an Arminian is a Romanist or suggested I was advocating a false unity.
The KJV Only debate has also pretty much died out. Over on CARM we have two pseudo-scholars, Jim Snapp and whoever Nazaroo is. Snapp actually makes a point once in awhile worth considering. He would make more points that others would be receptive to if he didn't operate with the conspiracy theory mindset that textual critics somehow got together and hide information from people (James apparently has never been to an SBL meeting or read very much of the scholars; they bore into each other's method all the time even when they agree). Nazaroo puts up theoretical paradigms of what he calls 'the Traditional Text' but never tells us which manuscript began the genealogical descent of similar endings. Both seemingly never read that it is NOT a TC board; it is a KJVO board.
Each of these is a microcosm of what I find to be repugnant. Christians have brought their political tactics to the religious war and engage in the same kinds of propaganda. I used to challenge most of those guys to debates but I then realized that aside from sounding like James White (which was hardly my goal) and engendering needless feelings of persecution, the challenged won't respond. And maybe that's for the best since the world seeing us at one another's throats is not the best of witnesses. (I do make one exception but that's only because he has felt the high calling of God to go smear me by name on Amazon and - for those who don't know - on Deception Bytes under the post "Baptism of the Spirit II" where he posts as Providential. He'll never actually man up and do it, but the challenge issued publicly then deprives him of his argument). But too much time is spent building caricatures of the opponent. So I attempt to at least refrain from that and the easiest way to do that is simply to not post.
And speaking of James White, I have a few things to say. I am probably in the minority on White in the sense that most folks either like him or hate him. I have a mixed opinion on him. He has been nice and always taken my calls and always responded to my emails. He tends to be polite on the phone as well. On the other hand his "doctorate" has always bothered me just as it bothers a number of Christians who otherwise like him (Bill Alnor is an example). And - and this is my OPINION - I think he spends WAY TOO MUCH time on Calvinism. OK, he's actually been better on that lately. But for about two years there it seemed he didn't talk about much besides Calvinism. White's own words admit that Arminians are saved (some, just like Calvinists), so why spend so much time on it? But I also think he does that debate thing TOO often. I think it fair to ask one's self 'why.' I think there is a vainglory that some may seek in 'winning' such a contest that has little to do with the accuracy of the message proclaimed. A clever debater can make a wipeout against him on facts look like a draw or win. I'm not accusing White of doing that but we should remember that the winner of a debate is not even necessarily right - much less right in the eyes of God.
I'm just letting go of a few opinions at this time. Don't take any of them personally.
But I find much greater ease in my life not worried who's saying what about what where, you know? There's also the tendency to go for the roundhouse knockout and cross the line in the process.
On the lighter side, I will be teaching the book of Mark this summer to the Sunday School. I do look forward to that. So I am around, I just haven't been here in awhile.
To both of you who missed me, Hello.
Oh and one more thing:
RRRRRROOOOOOOOOOLLLLLLLLLLL
TIDE,
ROLL!!!
OK, for those who have not heard.
I will be interning this year for Wallace under the auspices both of Dallas Theological Seminary and the Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts. I was at the recent fundraiser where the guest speaker was Lee Strobel. I get an email a day (minimum usually) from Wallace or the crew. I do not feel comfortable giving out info because some of it is confidential at this time, and I don't want to mix up which info is which.
We have also decided that my Master's thesis is going to be on the manuscripts that underlie I John 5:7. I'll get you more specifics as time goes by. I think I'm going to do an examination of common words and trace some of the lines of genealogy, but we'll just see.
I haven't been online much and to tell you the truth, I don't miss it. I think the Christian discussion board has become a Neanderthal form of communication because not much communicating goes on. Much of what goes on is little more than posturing and avoiding answering tough questions about one's own faith. The more I look the less it surprises me anymore that Christians really don't take a long, hard look at themselves and their views.
Too much of what goes on is posturing, and the Net is another in the long line of shallow forms of entertainment and communication that enables someone to say pretty much anything and have no consequences for it. Consider as just one example the Word-Faith board at CARM.
I simply do not understand how some of those folks can look themselves in the mirror. Some of them MUST know that what they are spouting is little more a scriptural interpretation that became a mantra after Hagin claimed Jesus revealed the true interpretation to him. And I think their discomfort level explains the long list of things that get thrown in and have nothing to do with anything.
There are a few posters I like. I think Swordsman 53 posts here as well. I think his name is Bob. And he is an Arminian whose arguments - even where I disagree - are solidly made and he's kind for the most part. He's certainly a lot more tolerant towards some people than I'm capable of being - or at least used to. I've gotten a thicker skin in part because DTS is being overrun by Arminians. OK, that IS an exaggeration but not by much. Last fall I took Ecclesiology and the prof had us share our backgrounds in the first paper. He stated that every semester we get more Methodists at DTS. I would assume those are pretty much all Arminians.
But the Christian church as a whole is lazy. I find this in Sunday School and other places. Rather than search and get their hearts and spirits both opened and split open, the easy thing to do is just ask the pastor. For some reason there is an assumption that the pastor is the functional equivalent of a modern pope in Protestant circles.
And too many side issues drive the entire thing. I know people who do their textual criticism as well as their text wrestling based solely on the principle of inerrancy. As a consequence they rule out some possibilities immediately. Why? Well because if that's true then something else is thereby false. I think it's a wrong way to do theology. Another is the mantra of 'faith alone.' I don't know how many of you have ever been around a so-called 'Free Grace' church, but I've been in one now for years. I didn't know Free Grace was (is) a distinctive brand of theology. I just thought every Christian church believed in 'free grace.' But they have a pet peeve, their enemy 'lordship salvation.' And I'm sick and tired of the argument because most of it involves a misunderstanding of the opposing position.
The same can be said - imho to a greater level - on the A-C debate that has gone on ad nauseum for thousands of years with the combatants no closer to each other than they used to be. You will note my postings on that board are rare. That's because I watch most of the combatants on both sides twist the words of their theological opponents and - in many cases - simply assert a straw man caricature to the opponent. I put up a post two years ago pleading for a more irenic tone. What did I get? With the exception of Pavkovic, the Arminians were mostly receptive and kind. Some of the Calvinists were but others continued the ridiculous insistence that an Arminian is a Romanist or suggested I was advocating a false unity.
The KJV Only debate has also pretty much died out. Over on CARM we have two pseudo-scholars, Jim Snapp and whoever Nazaroo is. Snapp actually makes a point once in awhile worth considering. He would make more points that others would be receptive to if he didn't operate with the conspiracy theory mindset that textual critics somehow got together and hide information from people (James apparently has never been to an SBL meeting or read very much of the scholars; they bore into each other's method all the time even when they agree). Nazaroo puts up theoretical paradigms of what he calls 'the Traditional Text' but never tells us which manuscript began the genealogical descent of similar endings. Both seemingly never read that it is NOT a TC board; it is a KJVO board.
Each of these is a microcosm of what I find to be repugnant. Christians have brought their political tactics to the religious war and engage in the same kinds of propaganda. I used to challenge most of those guys to debates but I then realized that aside from sounding like James White (which was hardly my goal) and engendering needless feelings of persecution, the challenged won't respond. And maybe that's for the best since the world seeing us at one another's throats is not the best of witnesses. (I do make one exception but that's only because he has felt the high calling of God to go smear me by name on Amazon and - for those who don't know - on Deception Bytes under the post "Baptism of the Spirit II" where he posts as Providential. He'll never actually man up and do it, but the challenge issued publicly then deprives him of his argument). But too much time is spent building caricatures of the opponent. So I attempt to at least refrain from that and the easiest way to do that is simply to not post.
And speaking of James White, I have a few things to say. I am probably in the minority on White in the sense that most folks either like him or hate him. I have a mixed opinion on him. He has been nice and always taken my calls and always responded to my emails. He tends to be polite on the phone as well. On the other hand his "doctorate" has always bothered me just as it bothers a number of Christians who otherwise like him (Bill Alnor is an example). And - and this is my OPINION - I think he spends WAY TOO MUCH time on Calvinism. OK, he's actually been better on that lately. But for about two years there it seemed he didn't talk about much besides Calvinism. White's own words admit that Arminians are saved (some, just like Calvinists), so why spend so much time on it? But I also think he does that debate thing TOO often. I think it fair to ask one's self 'why.' I think there is a vainglory that some may seek in 'winning' such a contest that has little to do with the accuracy of the message proclaimed. A clever debater can make a wipeout against him on facts look like a draw or win. I'm not accusing White of doing that but we should remember that the winner of a debate is not even necessarily right - much less right in the eyes of God.
I'm just letting go of a few opinions at this time. Don't take any of them personally.
But I find much greater ease in my life not worried who's saying what about what where, you know? There's also the tendency to go for the roundhouse knockout and cross the line in the process.
On the lighter side, I will be teaching the book of Mark this summer to the Sunday School. I do look forward to that. So I am around, I just haven't been here in awhile.
To both of you who missed me, Hello.
Oh and one more thing:
RRRRRROOOOOOOOOOLLLLLLLLLLL
TIDE,
ROLL!!!