Subject: Re: Supercessionism

From: [email-masked] (Robert Groover)
Date: Mon, 4 Dec 1995 04:23:44 -0800 (PST)

>    In seminary, when I was exposed to Jewish-Christian relations, I
> discovered  that using terms that are acceptable to both faiths helps to open
> the door to such an opportunity of learning.
If that's your objective, then you can use "Pentateuch", "Prophets," 
"Tanakh," or such terms (or, when appropriate, "LXX").

>   It's not such a matter of "giving up" our beliefs, but having a more common
> point of reference.
No, repudiating "supercessionism" is precisely a matter of giving up the
traditional Christian claims.  The whole topic seems to me to be a matter
of apologetics rather than scholarship (and hence not necessarily one for
this list), but I object to the implicit assumption that we all share 
your view of traditional Christian claims.
Advantages of the conventional terminology are that everyone understands
it clearly, and that theological implications may be assumed to be
historical baggage rather than active assertions; the same cannot be said
of the neologisms you propose.

>   Besides, we who are text critics know that there is some question as to if
> Jesus did say KAINHS when referring to the DIAQHKHS he was making (Mk14:24;
> Mt 26:28).
Sorry to be so slow replying, but I still haven't looked into the
apparatus here - which witnesses attest the omission of KAINH? 
And do any omit it in both these passages?

>    There's no doubt there is anitsemitism and supercessionism in the NT.  But
> the  message of God's love for all is central.
Of course, the decision as to what is "central" implies doctrinal choices
- and a focus on any one "central" aspect risks oversimplification of a
fairly complex body of teachings. 

>     So on this TC-list, I would like to us to consider using inter-faith
> terminology, NOT to be more PC, but so we can make this list a friendly place
> for scholars of different faiths who have a lot to contribute to Biblical
> text criticism.
Great - but I would say that introducing new theologically loaded 
terminology is not conducive to that end.

Robert Groover   [email-masked]   (PGP key on request)
Member ECS, AVS, ACM, OSA, Sen.Mem.IEEE, Reg'd Patent Atty
        "All men by nature desire knowledge."

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From: "James R. Adair" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 4 Dec 1995 09:26:52 -0500 (EST)

I think the discussion that has ensued as a result of my original post 
has demonstrated that there is not any single term to describe the 
textual criticism of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament/First 
Testament/Tanakh that is one hundred percent satisfactory.  My question 
was directed solely at the use of these terms in the field of textual 
criticism, not religious studies as a whole.  Though there is obviously 
some overlap, I think the fact that the discipline deals explicitly with 
language, and implicitly with canon, contributes to the difficulty.  
Textual critics of all backgrounds should continue to use the terms that 
seem to them, for whatever reasons, to be the most satisfactory, 
remembering the imperfections of whatever term they choose.

Jimmy Adair
Manager of Information Technology Services, Scholars Press
    and
Managing Editor of TELA, the Scholars Press World Wide Web Site
---------------> http://scholar.cc.emory.edu <-----------------