justification. This essay attempts to provide a philosophical foundation for midrashic interpretation by placing it in the context of the idea (vaguely neoplatonic) that God is only fully realized as the result of a certain process, a process of which midrashic interpretation is an essential part. The essay is not genuinely historical, in that the explanation offered as a basis for rabbinic hermeneutics is not ascertainably a tenet of Jewish thought, and therefore cannot be assumed to underlie the practice of (...) midrashic interpretation in actual cases. On the other hand, it is not completely unhistorical in so far as the materials used to provide the foundation are, as already indicated, a part of Jewish thought, and also in that the foundation itself finds many echoes, of varying intensities, within the Jewish tradition. In the final section I attempt to spell out some connections between the specifically Jewish question of rabbinic hermeneutics, and some more general ideas in philosophy and psychoanalysis, and I hope that this will make the essay of interest to more than just students of Jewish thought. (shrink)

Theology involves inquiry into God's nature, God's purposes, and whether certain experiences or pronouncements come From God. These inquiries are metaphysical, part of theology's concern with the veridicality of signs and realities that are independent from humans. Several research programs concerned with the relation between theology and science aim to secure theology's intellectual standing as a metaphysical discipline by showing that it satisfies criteria that make modern science reputable, on the grounds that modern science embodies contemporary canons of respectability for (...) metaphysical disciplines. But, no matter the ways in which theology qua metaphysics is shown to resemble modern science, these research programs seem destined for failure. For, given the currently dominant approaches to understanding modern scientific epistemology, theological reasoning is crucially dissimilar to modern scientific reasoning in that it treats the existence of God as a certainty immune to refutation. Barring the development of an epistemology of modern science that is amenable to theology, theology as metaphysics is intellectually disreputable. (shrink)

On February 28, 2002, John Dominic Crossan gave a very well-organized and entertaining presentation for the Annual Mary Olive Woods Lecture and was well received by the large audience. His talk should spark continued interest in who is likely the most influential person ever to walk the earth. He condensed three lectures into one as he spoke of the materials, methods, and results of his historical research into the life of Jesus. The materials mentioned were the canonical Gospels of Matthew, (...) Mark, Luke and John. (Although throughout his research, Crossan relies very heavily on other texts such as the Gospel of Peter and the Gospel of Thomas, he did not mention these as material resources; see related comments below.) The bulk of his talk focused on the methods, in which he described an idealized version of what an anthropologist, an historian, and an archeologist would have to say about the early First Century Palestine, especially Galilee, if they knew nothing of the four gospels. The results are the ideas that Jesus taught primarily about the kingdom of God and used that as a basis for nonviolent resistance to the Roman Empire. The primary ministry of the historical Jesus is that of a social reformer, with political overtones. Pilate saw the threat that Jesus posed to the authority of the Romans, and had him executed because of that threat. Jesus brought “sociosomatic” healing to individuals, and encouraged his companions (not disciples) to do likewise. For an idea of what Crossan has in mind when he speaks of sociosomatic healing, think of the maturation of the main character in Good Will Hunting. With humor and a lively presentation, Crossan provided much useful and interesting information in his lecture and the discussion that followed. (shrink)