On Fri, 2 May 1997, B. Crachiolo wrote:
>
> One problem, though, surprised me, and I had some difficulty attempting to
> overcome it: They displayed a remarkable tendency to read the Hebrew
> Bible as if it were a preface to the New Testament. I found myself
> confronted with remarks like "Well, Jesus said about this. . ." or "This
> changes in the New Testament." While I appreciated their enthusiasm, it
> became a near-daily task for me to explain to them that the texts we were
> exploring were not written with the intent of explaining Christianity;
> they had trouble understanding that Christianity did not yet exist (one
> kid even wrote about "Christian converts" in _Genesis_!).
And how would one know that these texts were not written with the intent
of explaining Christianity? Only if one knows that Jesus Christ was not
the fulfillment of the Jewish Law and Prophets. Christians know that he
was, non-Christians know with equal conviction that he was not. Your
daily explanations to your students sound, at least as described here,
like an effort by one true believer to convince other true believers of
the falseness of their beliefs.
Of course, the Christian interpretation of the Hebrew Scriptures presumes
that Jesus Christ as Messiah was intended as such from eternity and that
all of God's acts throughout time point toward the Incarnation. This is a
sweeping claim and one that non-Christians rightly do not accept. But how
can you be so sure you know the "intent" of the Author of the Hebrew
Scriptures? Perhaps because you do not believe what Christians believe
(about Jesus of Nazareth and hence about the Hebrew Scriptures--the two
are an inseparable package for Christians but not for non-Christians).
Given your beliefs (non-belief in Christianity as universal truth), one
can understand your daily efforts to set the minds of your students
aright. But that would be a situation of conflicting beliefs, not of a
self-evidently superior explanation of the meaning of the Hebrew
Scriptures patiently correcting a self-evidently false explanation of the
Hebrew Scriptures.
Only for a brief period in Western history (roughly the 19th and early
20th century) has it been axiomatically assumed that the only meaning a
text may have is the meaning given it by its original receptors. We don't
read Plato purely in the manner of the Platonic academy nor even in accord
with Middle Platonism or Neo-Platonism. That Christians read the Hebrew
Scriptures as pointing to Christ is central to Christian faith. It is a
bias, of course, but so too is any other reading of them. That an utterly
unbiased manner of reading the Hebrew Scriptures is possible is itself
something of a pre-judgment.
One might gently point out to Christian students that they are reading the
Hebrew Scriptures through Christian eyes and that not everyone does so.
But I suspect they might already know that, give that they are committed
Christians. Or, if indeed they are not aware of this, they might receive
this knowledge quite readily. They might continue to believe that their
beliefs are correct and the beliefs of others, including the way those
beliefs influence the reading of the Hebrew Scriptures, are wrong. But
somehow the idea has crept into contemporary minds that believing that
someone else is wrong is a form of animosity or hatred of someone else or
otherwise reprehensible. If so, we all hate each other, since we all
believe that what we believe is right and others are wrong--if not, then
we don't believe anything about anything, which, of course, is something
of a broad statement of belief, perhaps closest to dogmatic
deconstructionism, though, not being of that religion, I should claim to
be able to say what its adherents believe.
Your students are in effect pointing out to you that they are
committed to their faith. Why this should be held against them or why
they should be patronizingly set straight by those
who are committed to other faiths or to the faith of no-faith, I do not
entirely grasp. But that is probably because I am biased.
But, it seems to me, that genuine debate can take place only among those
genuinely committed to their beliefs, convictions, and conclusions about
what is true and false, knowable and unknowable, good and bad etc. If
firmly holding
to religious belief renders me ipso facto contemptuous toward those who do
not hold my beliefs then debate, and even conversation, becomes a series
of unlistened to, simultaneous monologues.
Now, I expect that some might say that the issue is not holding
beliefs--everyone does--but of excessively firm holding of beliefs." But
can one hold a belief only partially? Can one be half-pregnant? If one
is in doubt about the truth of a belief, one does not belief it. And, I
doubt that systematic doubt of everything is possible--but then, I could
be wrong!
Dennis Martin
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