This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Sadly I don't have my finger on the pulse as much as I would like to, but from what I can tell – less true than you might think. I'm not saying that sources from 2004 are bad but I'm also not sure that 2004 is "contemporary scholarship."
Still not really seeing engagement with my point about Matthew 16:4. Which is probably fine – I am suspicious of arguments that rely too much on "hyperliteral interpretations of the text" and I think that argument tilts that way.
Again, I've looked through many commentaries, they are pretty unambiguous about this line. I feel confident enough not to bother pirating a more modern one.
Sure, it could be a group of people - contemporary people. Which is in line with every other place he uses it.
I don't think the idea I've suggested is unique to me, but I've seen nothing to indicate it's a mainstream view.
Sure. But given that Christ accuses the exact same contemporary people of a centuries-old murder, it seems...not completely unreasonable to suggest if the group of contemporary people existed before Christ (hence the murder) they would exist after Him. I'm far from confident in this, mind you, I'm just not sure it's implausible.
There are people that argue this. For example: https://www.academia.edu/97411885/This_Generation_in_Matthew_24_34
But again it all strikes me as special pleading, even though I'm sure this scholar put a lot of high quality research into it. Apocalypticism is a dominant theme from early Christian documents. They expected Jesus to return soon, because Jesus said he was returning soon. The prima facie reading would be what people back then understood.
Aha, good find! Have you read it? This is exactly the sort of digging into the context that I am unfamiliar with that I was hoping someone would bring out, and I'm genuinely very grateful to you for flagging this for me. (Stuff like this is what makes The Motte so great!)
And also in late(r) ones! My understanding is that Revelation was believed to have been written around the time of John. And it's been a recurring theme ever since.
Yes! But He also gives a large number of parables where He cautions that He will be gone long enough to tempt some people to believing He will never come, including in this passage, and as I believe you mentioned, 2 Peter 3 talks about this explicitly – there's apparently not much consensus as to when it was written but it seems like it could have been written earlier than Matthew. Peter certainly seems to be counseling believers to be prepared to extend ~infinite patience while still living as if Christ would return tomorrow. (And of course I'd say this is also what Christ Himself is pointing towards in the very next chapter, 25).
Finally, in the plot of Matthew itself, Christ is giving the disciples this advice at a time before they realize He is going to be crucified. Afterwards, in Matthew 28, He gives them the Great Commission, which is still ongoing (but see also of course Matthew 24:14).
Wasn't Christ in this very passage already "problematizing" prima facie readings? He references the defilement of the temple (in Daniel) as a future event, which Jews at the time would have recognized as a past event, wasn't He? So it seems to me that a prima facie reading of this passage is that Christ is being deliberately cryptic at least at points.
Now as I already pointed out to Quantum, Christ Himself satisfies Quantum's prima facie requirement – Christ is still alive! But of course I think that's really the sticking point – either Christ rose from the dead (and there's some good reasons to believe this! – I think fair-minded people can acknowledge this even if they are not personally a Christian) in which case I don't think this passage should stand in the way of being a Christian. Or – He didn't, in which case this passage could be very explicable and it would not move the needle much.
I know that in real life things are a bit less reductive than that – people are swayed by something like the weight of evidence as a whole – but I think you can see why people who aren't completely satisfied by explanations of passages like this do believe. Most Christians can't explain every possible objection to Scripture, any more than a scientist of any given discipline can explain every scientific anomaly. But just as the inability of science to close the case on outstanding questions does not make the framework it has established useless, the fact that Christians still wrestle with the text centuries after it was written does not make the moral and historical framework it has established obsolete. (I'd actually argue this is a feature, not a bug!)
I skimmed it but I'm a dilettante. It really is quite a fascinating field.
I agree that if you're willing to approach it with faith, then a lot of it is unclear enough for faith to hold up.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link