Talk:1 Sam 2:21-25

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I wonder if there is a good article out there somewhere about how to make sense of the Old Testament. It seems like the same sort of question I asked with Samson, one might ask in this story. Similar questions could come up in 100 Old Testament stories. If not maybe we need to write such an article ourselves. Or maybe we should ask someone who doesn't currently contribute to write one. --Matthew Faulconer 14:26, 7 Jun 2006 (UTC)

Matthew, I think you are coming at one of the most important questions Latter-day Saints need to answer. Wherever the scriptures--which we all apparently accept as binding--do not quite float with us, we are inclined either to retreat, to misinterpret radically, or to falter in regards to whether we accept the scriptures as thoroughly binding. I think that all three of these responses are attempts to escape thinking. So how do we respond? It seems to me that, given the binding character of the "canon," there are two broad ways of responding faithfully to the text:
    1. We approach the difficult text exclusively, in an attempt to understand that particular text more profoundly.
    2. We approach the difficult text as part of the broader scriptural canon, in an attempt to understand the theological "unity" of the scriptures.
Now, I don't for a moment think that these two responses are mutually exclusive; rather, I think that each points toward the other. If we want to understand the broader scriptural canon, it can only begin with careful, exclusive exegetical projects; if we want to understand any particular text more profoundly, it can only open entirely through the tension it maintains with other scriptural texts. In other words, this double approach is perhaps just a single approach: we must be always interpreting the scriptures, moving all over the place, in incredible detail, always trying to get a better perspective on things.
So what of these difficult passages? I confess that they (individually, not collectively) plague me. After some initial devoted attention, I leave such passages to the side, but in just such a way that they become the very horizon of the scriptural canon for me. For example, the multiple authorship question of Isaiah was a major question for me for a while, and after a couple months of study, I had to set it aside, because my direct approach was yielding familiarity, but no conclusions. However, when I turned to other places in the scriptures, every text had some important connection to the Isaianic question. The "difficulty" was resolved through my indirect study of the problem. Like the discussion you linked to above, the preliminary answers only really set up the problem. But a constant return to it from other texts begins to answer it.
A bibliography on the subject. To be honest, I think a chronological reading of Hugh Nibley's works on the Book of Mormon provide an interesting dramatization of this very situation. As a scholar of the ancient world, and as a (for his time) relatively liberal thinker, Nibley was plagued by certain difficulties in the Book of Mormon. He published responses to some of those difficulties long before he had any real answers for the questions they raised. Sometimes it is only very late that he has any real response to some difficulties he had very early on. A chronological reading of his writings on the temple provides much the same picture there. Margaret Barker's work does much the same--and specifically on the Old Testament. But these are models, not discussions of the problems. But I think that's just the point: we have to get into the text and see what it says. If there is any thinker who has tried to deal with the alterity of the scriptures and how we ought to take that... I suppose I would suggest the theologians/phenomenologists/hermeneuts of the French school (Ricoeur, Chretien, Marion, etc.), who try to think these sorts of issues. But I think even that, while incredible reading, is unnecessary for the difficulty we are here encountering. A preliminary response... --Joe Spencer 17:05, 8 Jun 2006 (UTC)
This comment at T&S reflects the thinking I'm currently settled on—I think we should reflect carefully on how these passages are worded, but we should also try to understand the idioms and phrasing of the culture the scriptures were written in without reading theological implications into the text when none are intended (that is, for example, I don't think God took away Pharoah's agency when God "hardened Pharoah's heart," but I do think it's important to read Pharoah's hardening his heart as part of God's plan for Israel...). I also think a nice feature of the wiki format (which is lacking on blogs) is the ability to organize and summarize the main points of discussions like this for future reference. I think asking someone else to write an article is a great idea. I'd think young BYU faculty might be a good place to start (BYU b/c they have potential to generate more interest, and young b/c they're likely to be slightly more tech-savy to figure out the wiki...). Eric Huntsman is really the only young faculty member I know there (he probably won't remember me, we met through mutual friends), but he specializes in Greek not Hebrew....
Also, I like Joe's thoughts, but don't have much to add. I haven't really read enough Nibley to know how his writings pertain beyond what Joe has explained, and although I've dabbled enough in philosophy to appreciate the importance and pitfalls regarding an author's intent and cultural background when reading a text, I'm not well-read enough to explicitly incorporate philosophical insights into this discussion. --RobertC 23:38, 10 Jun 2006 (UTC)