Wed Jan 22 04:43:45 1997

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From: "Professor L.W. Hurtado" 
Organization: Divinity Faculty
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Date: Wed, 22 Jan 1997 09:37:34 +000
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Subject: Re: Post-modern textual criticism
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Bart and I seem to have different appraisals of the value and even 
the import of radical "post-modernist" theory.  Of course, every 
reader has no choice but to decide what a text means, and in that 
sense is terribly important in the reading/interpreting process.  
And, of course, when texts are copied by hand, this "reading" will 
also affect the copying/transmission.
But the point Bart seems to be missing about radical postmodernist 
theory (e.g., Fish, Lyotard, et alia), is that in their view *you 
can't really criticize any reading as to whether it is more or less 
correct, for there is no standard theoretical or otherwise by which 
to talk about "correct"*.  That is, Bart, your term "orthodox 
*corruption*" is out of bounds on postmodernist terms--there can be 
no "corruption" for there is no standard by which to make such 
judgments, or else *all* reading/copying is "corruption" so what's 
the big deal?  Do you really want to embrace this approach to our 
field, Bart?

Larry Hurtado

L. W. Hurtado
University of Edinburgh,
New College
Mound Place 
Edinburgh, Scotland EH1 2LX
Phone: 0131-650-8920
Fax: 0131-650-6579
E-mail:  L.Hurtado@ed.ac.uk

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