Comments on: “Seems” Like Scholarship, But It “Surely” Isn’t

By: slaveofone

slaveofone — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 00:43:58 +0000

This seems to a basic human fault among even the most brilliant and erudite (for instance, I found myself repeatedly writing “why?” in the margins of John Collins’ amazing introductory textbook of the Hebrew Bible because he routinely made statements or proceeded upon assumptions for which no reasons or evidences had been given). Perhaps time and space are as much to blame as anything else for this kind of avoidable error.

What really amuses and/or irks me, however, is when a scholar spends all this time making an argument and then suddenly says something that directly contradicts their own work! I seem to find this kind of thing happening more often among papers or books that are theologically focused (ahem, Brueggemann, ahem, Eichrodt, ahem, Von Rad, ahem ahem), but I’ve seen it everywhere. For instance, in Scribal Culture and the Making of the Hebrew Bible by Karel van der Toorn (quite a great book, by the way), KvdT takes all this time to show us what distinguishes Pre-Hellenistic oral and scroll matter from Hellenistic book matter in ancient Israelite, Mesopotamian, and Egyptian texts, and then makes several comments about Daniel (Hebrew-Aramaic version) belonging to the Hellenistic book category even though the examples he’s given of Pre-Hellenistic scroll matter fit Daniel better! I saw virtually this same thing happen in Martin Hengel’s The Septuagint as Christian Scripture: Its Prehistory and the Problem of Its Canon, whose arguments for acceptability of any sort of text as canonical or authoritative by the religious community effectively negates Daniel from being considered according to his own dating of it, causing him to call Daniel’s inclusion a “historical error” (p. 91) and to say that it “seems to be almost a miracle” (p. 95) that it got included. I’m starting to think Daniel is nothing more than a whipping boy for scholars.

By: Patrick George McCullough

Patrick George McCullough — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 17:00:26 +0000

To all: I can appreciate the impulse to learn the name of the person in question, but I’m less concerned in this post to shame the author and more concerned with the practice itself.

By: Patrick George McCullough

Patrick George McCullough — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 16:54:07 +0000

Thanks for the outsider’s perspective, Phil.

By: Patrick George McCullough

Patrick George McCullough — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 16:49:47 +0000

Stephen: Well played, sir!

By: phil_style

phil_style — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 13:54:34 +0000

A common issue with historians I find. As a natural scientist, it’s a little odd to see other ‘scientists’ using speculative language when the evidence is inconclusive. Better so say ‘not enough data’ than jump to unsupported conclusions.

By: Stephen C. Carlson

Stephen C. Carlson — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 13:43:53 +0000

I prefer evidence to opinion, too . . . which is why I’m a little frustrated that you didn’t name names. I just can’t evaluate what you say for myself.

By: Nijay Gupta

Nijay Gupta — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 13:06:24 +0000

Hi Pat. Its Nijay. That doesn’t seem like something I would ever do. Note the following evidence

By: James McGrath

James McGrath — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 08:53:34 +0000

It sounds like me too – I wonder how many of us could say the same.

Without specifics it is hard to comment, but I think it is appropriate to speculate about what might have been, based on what we do know. In such cases, what I’d expect to characterize a scholarly approach are phrases like those you mentioned – ‘I imagine.’

I would expect that on this matter you would surely agree with me.

By: John Lyons

John Lyons — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 08:00:44 +0000

Nah, your brain seems to be working just fine to me. A good question though is whether you could publish an article repeating the claims but with evidence this time, without having to cite said travesty as a ‘source’ (except in a very negative way!)

All you can do, Pat, is be happy with your work, and keep to the standards that you and the people you respect set. There are plenty of idiots out there (my previous story on conference books gives you one, but there are many more), the only mystery being how so many of them got jobs. But even that is not a mystery really. Relatively few are really incompetent or corrupt – most are just under work pressure or are burnt out. What is really sad is when they don’t realise it, or when they indulge in games in which they make fools of themselves. For every great older scholar, there are the broken husks of numerous others standing in his/her shadows. One SBL session I went to years ago was a closed session; only those round the table could speak. A problem came up because of some new-fangled theory and no-one at the table knew how to deal with it. A friend and I, both PG students, knew the answer, but couldn’t say anything. Excruciating! Never will I ever take part in such a session. I just don’t have the brass neck for it.

I am making scholarship sound hard work now – how did that happen?

By: Patrick George McCullough

Patrick George McCullough — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 07:28:25 +0000

Thanks for those thoughts, John. I’d be happy with “disputed evidence.” Just something to support the argument. He evaluates other scholars’ evidence (look at how this other guy uses the evidence, it is revealing…), but doesn’t offer an alternative. Gimme something to hang a hat on. Thing is, I really like some of his ideas, but if I use them at all, I’ll have to do the leg work that he didn’t do. I have already found one other scholar using this article to support his own view (without mentioning the fact that the original author doesn’t support the view with any evidence!).

I suppose part of me is jealous that others can get away with this sort of laziness. It is exhausting having to be a doctoral student, working to support every possible claim and counterclaim. Bah. One of these days my brain is going to explode.