Blog
Community Boundary Definition, Part 2: Paganism
The early church also had to struggle to define itself in relation to Paganism. The church had to decide what degree of cultural syncretism was acceptable and how much its members had to form their own subculture. One example of this dimension of definition is the staunch, orthodox Christian refusal to participate in the Caesar…
Community Boundary Definition, Part 1: Judaism
Somewhat similar to the question of canonical development is the question of the boundaries of the Christian community. The orthodox early church had to work to define these boundaries over against Judaism, paganism, and heretical, “Christian” sects. Scholars have sometimes seen the struggle of Christianity to define itself in relation to Judaism as beginning in…
Canonical Development*
In the second and third centuries, the church worked under several different hermeneutical constraints, including: canonical development, community boundary definition (vis-à-vis Judaism, Paganism, and heretical, “Christian” sects), and hermeneutical method. Although this period of biblical interpretation has long been closed, being aware of the natures of these respective constraints can help us understand the early…
Messages in Communication
Texts are artifacts insofar as they are products of constructive processes and are ontologically distinct from their authors (Barton 159). Thus, respecting how readers encounter texts, Derrida correctly says that “there is nothing outside the text” (Caputo 80; cf. Barton 220). That is, readers only directly encounter the text, not its “meaning,” the author’s “intention,”…