Monday, September 21, 2009

Choosing your methodS

April DeConick has prompted another interesting discussion, defending one method of historiography over another, or so it seems.  The Bible and / or History are what're at stake for so many, or so it seems.  First, she gives (her) "perspective" (i.e., "Historical-critical scholarship is [to be] built on the presuppositions of the scientific search for knowledge."). Second, she coins as "confessional" those "scholars who are so invested theologically in a religious tradition and its maintenance [that they] are willing to suspend what we [historical-critical scientific types] know to be factual about our world in order to read their scriptures as fact." Then she comes in like Moses and lays down the "10 commandments" in scholarship with respect to the bible, and history, like a sacred cow or a golden calf. What I wish DeConick would've done (and she might still do it) is talk about Her Master's Tools?: Feminist And Postcolonial Engagements of Historical-Critical Discourse.

How I might respond is by putting up a post soon to get us listening to Jacqueline Jones Royster, which might help us listen to the bible. Royster, the expert in "textual studies (rhetoric, literacy, composition, literature, etc.)" and also the strong, factual "historian."

No comments: