A. It's one of St. Francis' most popular extant works. 2. Pope Francis quoted it extensively in laudatio si. iii. I ran in to a practical problem using it in my catechism class

@DickHarfield Do you think "critical scholars" will largely agree on the answer to this question? Wouldn't the theological background of such scholars play a role?

That is, I'd imagine that a Catholic "critical scholar" would answer differently from a deist "critical scholar," even if both self-identified as Christians.

@Nathaniel Your question to me probably relates to the question "What could explain the tenth Egyptian plague?"

@Nathaniel I do tend to find there is often a consensus among critical scholars, because they are all looking at the same data and generally using the same hermeneutic methods, at the same time trying to keep personal religious beliefs out of it. So, from that point of view, any one question may be answerable by a (partial) consensus of scholars.

@Nathaniel OOPs I just realised you had the question about the Trinity in mind ... sorry about that :)

@Nathaniel Returning to my train of thought ... Nevertheless, I was not saying that would be the case in this instance, merely that this would be a possibility the OP could consider. I was not leading him, merely trying to explain how the site works and how he can ask a good question.

It is also possible to to ask the views of a subset of critical scholars. I (vaguely) remember a recent question about the Acts Seminar, which had only about 100 voting members.

@DickHarfield Okay, fair enough. I think that can make sense for many questions, especially exegesis questions, but I'm not sure about that particular one.

@Nathaniel I'm not sure I quite follow you.

Sorry – I gave an answer that didn't provide the resource that someone wanted, and I didn't make much of a case for the non-existence of that resource. But then I critiqued someone else's answer for doing something similar.

It seems that I'm holding myself to a lower standard of what it takes to prove a negative than others, and I'm thinking through what that standard ought to be.

@Nathaniel Oh right. So my take on that is sometimes people are asking for things that don't exist and in a lot of cases a "near miss" is actually helpful as an answer. As long as the question is specific enough so that allowing such answers doesn't mushroom into a free for all, I'd say answers that give something close (and preferably explain why only a close match is possible) is fine.

As such I think your answer is fine. The JW one is marginal, but not enough that I would mod-delete it. It's in the balpark and probably quite useful to the OP. Also since he doesn't attack the JW belief in question only show some similarities between it and something else, it seemed fine to me.

At least from a moderator perspective. Whether it deserves up or down votes I'm not sure (I've done neither yet) but it doesn't seem to need the ax.

But there is no formula for this. If it had been a Catholic question and some Protestant was trying to make a case that Lutherans were close enough to fit the bill I'd probably have brought out the delete hammer.

@Caleb OK, that's helpful. I know some meta discussion has touched on this but I need to further consider how I'm evaluating these.

@Nathaniel Also if that answer had smelled any more as if he was promoting rather than describing 7thDA views in relation to the question I probably would have done something different.

Right, that makes sense. His tone seems to indicate that he is attempting to answer the question, even though he doesn't devote much effort to proving the negative.

Ah, but now his latest comment suggests that there are real examples! Interesting.

@Nathaniel If he follows through per his last comment this could be the makings of a good answer.

Yes indeed; that's great.

This I think is a bit unfair. I have no idea why I got downvotes. I'm totally correct about questions about Christian art being topical.

@curiousdannii Not, it wouldn't be better to "just migrate" as there is overlap.

@KorvinStarmast Well unscoped exegesis questions have been problematic for years, and are acknowledged as being the major hole in our otherwise rather firm on-topic definition. The idea is to solve the problem by declaring that there is no longer any overlap.

@curiousdannii Why not just declare them to be answerable by someone who believes scripture can interpret scripture?

@curiousdannii I respectfully disagree that there needs to be an "airtight" criterion and suggest that in this case we may be going too far in "rules centric" or "act like an algorithm"... again, in this case. It isn't (as I see it) necessarily controversial by nature. We are still people who participate here, so room to apply judgment is IMO a good principle.

(That's how I interpret them anyway, that's mainly why I avoid them biblical-basis is on my naughty list, not sure how I got a tag badge for it...)

@KorvinStarmast That had been my position for years. But they still cause some issues. Enough for it to make it into the questionnaire!

@PeterTurner Here's a thought ... should biblical basis questions be constrained to "per the NIV" or "per the RSV" so that Bible translation wars don't break out?

@KorvinStarmast that's a good thought, but it hasn't been an issue (other then KingJamesOrHightwayists)

@PeterTurner These exegesis questions are not the same as biblical-basis questions... and leaving it scoped to anyone who thinks scripture can interpret scripture doesn't really narrow them down by much at all. They're often still highly opinion based.

@KorvinStarmast I think Nathaniel's proposal was good, but last time I checked I was the only person who had upvoted it.

And there were no alternative suggestions :/

@KorvinStarmast I don't think that has ever been an issue.

@curiousdannii Then you and I can start our counterreformation on that score. You be Luther, I'll be Calvin, and fred can be Hobbes. grin

@KorvinStarmast Community moderation should indeed be "quick on the trigger." It needs to be careful and accurate, but it's important that the community quickly act on questions and answers that need attention, so as not to confuse people with apparently inconsistent rules.

@curiousdannii well it narrows down to about 2/3rds of Christendom. I've got a feeling biblical-basis is used as a poor man's exegesis as far as this site's concerned. biblical-basis is "where's the beef" and exegesis is "what's the beef".

@Nathaniel And scare people away? That is part of the unintended consequence, so I think there's a balance point somewhere in there. (Hell, roads, good intentions and all that ...)

@Nathaniel I can't see what the point of closing another half of the questions on the site is. Find a way for them to be topical or leave them as bad examples.

Isn't there a way a question can be left open, but tagged "this is a bad example"

@PeterTurner But then we'd need a "bad example" tag or we do indeed confuse people. Plus, if we say bad example we ought to say why. That adds work load. Is it value added?

@KorvinStarmast No, provide suggestions for improvement, and then reopen/undelete once it's in line with what we've found works here.

^^^ is what we got when we started to get serious on stackoverflow

Then it got moved to programmers.SE until we started to get serious on programmers.se

@PeterTurner To me that's what a closed, undeleted question is. It's a "bad example" and if it's valuable in some way it can be left on the site indenfinitely. But "bad examples" shouldn't keep getting new answers

@Nathan I don't think you are grokking the latent hostility problem with SE networks in the same way that I do. once we are in the SE, and have adapted to the SE mind set, we don't see the latent hostility. New entrants do. I've seen this feedback at each SE I've participated in, and I've commented on it at some length at RPG.SE

@Nathaniel that's what "locked" is for.

@PeterTurner You do know that tons of Biblical basis questions are asked of the Catholic church on this site too, don't you?

I am signing off before a denomination war starts. begins prayer for peace ...

@PeterTurner To me "locked" is the next level beyond closed. Locking is even more restrictive; it doesn't allow new answers or votes.

@curiousdannii yeah and those actually shouldn't be answered, except maybe by the Pope.

@curiousdannii Actually only 46

@PeterTurner Why?

@KorvinStarmast I'm sure I have different experience with this than you... it's a difficult question that different communities handle differently. On Latin.SE, we get less traffic, so we are more lenient with new users and don't close their questions as quickly as here. But here, an off-topic question can get three or four clearly opinion-based answers in a few hours.

@KorvinStarmast I used to have pretty good relations with my Protestant brethren, I just got upset once and made a bad name for myself (sorry, 100X sorry!).

@Nathaniel Here we get new askers and answerers, so it's important that those new answerers only have good questions available to them

The challenge is – close the question, and help ensure that 3 or 4 people don't get the wrong idea about what the site is about, or leave it open, be more "friendly" to the OP, and then frustrate 3 or 4 people who invested time in an answer.

@curiousdannii because the laity don't really have the faculty to interpret the Bible for themselves. Everything we offer is just our opinion

@PeterTurner Biblical basis questions aren't personal exegesis questions! They should be answered with quotes or references to authoritative sources.

Sure, we can post what an expert says, but even that is our filter - and only the Church is the filter of Biblical truths.

@PeterTurner And that is exactly what we would expect for questions asking for the Catholic Biblical basis, so I don't know why you think they shouldn't be answered

@curiousdannii Exactly. Every off-topic question we close helps ensure that new users who find our site don't get confused when we tell them their answer doesn't work on this site.

And that's why I say they shouldn't be answered, because they're supposed to be just our opinion.

@Nathaniel It also doesn't allow the post to be re-opened, which is really the point of making new rules, isn't it?

@PeterTurner But they're not. Where are you getting this from? Personal opinion isn't permitted anywhere on CSE. This site is all about documenting the beliefs and practices of Christian groups.

@curiousdannii you're right, I forgot to add the word not they're not supposed to be our opinion. But since, according to the Church they are our opinion (even if they're well researched), how can they be answered?

@PeterTurner Don't answer with your opinions, answer with quotes from authoritative Catholic Sources, like the Catechism.

@PeterTurner Right, it can't be reopened by the community, only by a mod via flag. But that's why generally I wouldn't lock things unless they are a) valuable and b) extremely off-topic and c) can't be fixed because doing so would break the answers. Closure is much more flexible.

@curiousdannii Yeah, that's what everyone does!

(doesn't mean I have to feel good about it)

@PeterTurner Is the Catechism just opinion too? I thought it was authoritative.

@curiousdannii In practice many (most?) biblical basis questions are answered with personal exegesis of random evangelicals...

@curiousdannii yeah, it's Authoritative. But if you're going to answer a "What's the Biblical Basis for the Kiss of Peace?" and use the Catechism to answer it, you're filtering the question.

@Nathaniel You're not wrong, we're far from the ideal. And I do that too. Laziness ;)

It's kind of like Copyright Law. It's OK for private use, but don't try spreading it around, even if you give it out for free.

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