MetaCatholic

Mark Goodacre first draws attention to R. Joseph Hoffmann’s response on behalf of the Jesus Project, and then offers his own comments on that statement. Others who have commented include Jim West (scroll to Update X) and Chris Zeichman. As one of those who also made a critical comment on the website launch of the project, I also want to add my two pennyworth..

Mark in particular reflects on what is, undoubtedly a gross generalization in Hoffman’s response about blogging on the Bible. Like him, I can’t think of any blog post that did more than raise serious questions about what on earth was going on with this project and its announcement of its fifty fellows, at least several of whom (including two bloggers) had either raised questions, or denied knowledge of being a fellow. That is hardly an assault or outright opposition. Mark’s post is well worth reading both as a response, and a general reflection on the role of blogging in the area of biblical studies.

Near the heart of Hoffman’s explanation of the problems is this statement:

While the website was only a model of things to come, a compilation of biographies of the entire list—UCD, listserv, and “under consideration”–was posted to the site together with some sample texts as active information.  What was meant as a test has lingered on the site as a done deal.  This was done largely because we were being hammered for information and were late in conceptualizing the site itself.   The posting was premature; the website was not flagged as under construction.

But I want to say this is not good enough. You are responsible for what you publish. If you publish a website that claims fifty fellows in your project, you must expect those reading it to believe you mean it. Your readers are entitled to criticise your choices. they are further entitled to assume that those you name have made specific agreements to participate in the project, not merely that they haven’t replied to an email asking if they wished to be disassociated from the project!

The web is not a place for private test sites. It is a public forum. There is in truth much rubbish on the web, many spoofs, many intentionally misleading posts, and polemical and wilful mischaracterizations of others work. There is also a great deal of reliable information, thoughtful comment, truth-digging exploration and honest enquiry and dialogue.  The biblioblogs I read (mainly those listed on the Biblioblogs site) share this latter set of characteristics, not the former.

Most of us who spend time on the web know the web’s mixed nature, know how to use it, and also understand its public nature – what is said is open to comment by all, fair and unfair, scholarly and ignorant. We (if I may include myself in this august company) assume that official sites portrayed as major projects by reputable organizations are meant to be read as truthful announcements of a public nature. We do not expect them to be trial balloons of something not even at first draft stage, a Lorem ipsum mockup of nonsense text with no meaning.

It is therefore not only inadequate but inaccurate to say in this context, as Hoffman does:

But even bloggers have a minimal responsibility to fact and to discovering facts.

If I may address you directly: Mr Hoffman, you and your organisation published this as fact. You issued no disclaimers, and no hint of a process of planning and selection still being worked out. You made a public launch in the world’s largest public medium, and most widely spoken language. Now you tell us it was all an honest mistake, and most of it was what you hoped would become true, but your “facts” were only in the process of being realised from your ideas.

Bloggers like Jim West (whom you single out for mention) were being responsible to facts and to discovering them. But you are responsible for what you place on the web and thereby into the public arena, and you can’t blame your cock-up on our “conspiracy”. You are responsible for what you publish, and what you published was wishful thinking disguised as fact. It is hardly an auspicious beginning for what is intended to be an enterprise dedicated to scientific historical enquiry.

This post is a contribution (with apologies to C S Lewis) to the interesting debate between, on the one hand, John Hobbins and Kevin Edgecomb, and on the other Chris Weimer. You will need to read their interesting conversation for the context. in which I’ve chosen to make a sideways and more light-hearted post

My dear Wormwood,

Do not be so quick to congratulate yourself on your success in encouraging the historical point of view. In the opinion of Our Father below, this line of work has gone as far as it can go, and you are now wasting your time and his energy on it.

Unfortunately for you, in adopting this project (and do not try to suggest to Our Father that it was my idea) you forgot that history is our Adversary’s chosen arena. For some reason (and it was this that caused Our Father to remonstrate with Him so strongly) the Adversary continues to ignore his and our own higher spiritual nature, and interest himself in the boring and mundane details of those earth-creatures and their lives. Remember then, that when you deal with history, you work on the Enemy’s chosen battleground.

No, my dear Wormwood, if you do not wish me to haul you over the coals in my office, you must concentrate instead on taking people away from the quotidian and tedious context of history. From time to time we have our considerable successes. How well I remember the delight of leading dear Basilides along the path of our wisdom towards Our Father’s home. There is nothing like a spiritual secret to turn human hearts away from the plight of their neighbour. Our Adversary, Wormwood, is concerned with people: we, however, are concerned with souls: their final disembodiment is our greatest wish.

So forget this historical project of yours: the more scholars see the writers of that blasted Book as real people, the more likely they are to hear what they were saying. They may disagree with them, but don’t count on them not to ask questions. And questions are the last thing we want to hear. Questions always cause problems. Remember that the One who sits above will use the slightest opportunity to enter their minds: he is quite unscrupulous. You would think he would turn his head from an honest doubt in disgust. Instead he grovels to the doubter in ways too abject for any proud spirit to contemplate with equanimity.

What you must do, my dear nephew, is create simple faith. Not that vile purity of a person who gives their trust to the Enemy, but the deliberate rejection of thinking as an instrument for the Mind Above. Do not let them make connections between what they have discovered of the universe and what they read in the Adversary’s propaganda. Give them an absolute clarity that stories can’t be true, and combine it with an idea that anything that is not in those infernal writings is false. Take them away from history.

You will find some very able helpers among their own scholars, who insist that they alone can give meaning to these books: they have no meaning of their own. Do not think these views are contradictory. they are in fact what we want. On the one hand fill the church with people who believe that only facts have meaning, and then delude them into believing our Enemy’s stories can only be factual. On the other hand fill the universities with people who believe there is no meaning. Both groups will so misunderstand the other, that there will be no possibility of communication between them.

This is the ideal you must strive for, my dear Wormwood, to make history and meaning incompatible in the academy, and story and truth incompatible in the church. Learning from history will then be truly irrelevant, and no-one will ask any question they don’t already know the answer to, and know that that answer is pleasing to them. Both groups will disconnect their reading of their scriptures from reality.

The church group will create a false reality, full of fish swallowing people, and look only for supernatural signs as they cultivate their souls. The university group will end up denying there is any real meaning whatsoever, and create instead a purposeless playground to entertain the mind, far away from lower concerns. Those are our natural territory, Wormwood, my tasty little morsel. Bodies, nature and history are the Adversary’s invention. Do not fail me in this, dear nephew. If you do, then I shall with, of course, infinite regret, need to see you in my office for a roasting.

Your affectionate uncle,

Screwtape.