Subject: Re: Opinions about Fathers article

From: "DC PARKER" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 25 Jul 1997 22:35:51 GMT

May we stick to the basic issue?  If something is erroneous and 
misleading, then the originator should not make it available and the 
user should avoid consulting it.  Whether people have one or a 
thousand degrees, and whether the medium is paper or a web-site is 
quite irrelevant.  The question of access is apparently more 
complicated, but it is hard to see why confusion is preferable to 
blissful ignorance.

I for one am resigned to the fact that for the moment people are so in love with 
things electronic that they'll prefer anything in it to looking out a 
decent book or to leaving the matter alone.  But I absolutely support 
Bart Ehrman's plea for a gestation period in publishing 
electronically just as in the book production.  Post in haste and repent 
at leisure.

In passing, the claim that there is little available on patristic 
textual questions but a few articles is misleading.  One could compile a long 
bibliography, of both general and specialist materials, without too 
much thought.  But that's not an offer.  It's just underlining the 
point that one should at least know these sources before writing on 
the subject, even briefly.

There is an underlying point to these exchanges, which I want to 
speak to frankly:  The more interest in textual studies the better, I'm 
all for that.  But please will self-confessed amateurs listen 
carefully to those of us who have given our lives to these matters, and 
who spend every available moment in their study?    After 25 
years at it, I have at least discovered my ignorance.  I think that 
not everyone on the list realises that there is such a  stage.  To be 
honest, there is a huge gap in knowledge and critical training 
across this list, and in expectation of what constitutes proper 
scholarship.  People are at many 
different levels of knowledge, of course, that's fine. But the standards and 
quality of the discipline will not be widely improved if those who 
should be listening, reading and learning are talking and writing and 
trying to teach.

And please remember, before you rush to scold me, that this is not an arrogant 
piece of imperialism, but an attempt to encourage recognition of the 
high standards of our discipline.

DC PARKER
DEPT OF THEOLOGY
UNIVERSITY OF BIRMINGHAM
TEL. 0121-414 3613
FAX  0121-414 6866
E-MAIL [email-masked]