@Caleb I think the question and answer format is part of BHSE problem. Most interpretive insights do not come from a question but an observation. Often we don't have a question to ask until we see an alternative perspective. For instance, no one asked about Jesus command for the Samaritan woman to go get her husband. That's because the standard answer (Jesus did it to reveal his power and woman's sin) overrides any thought of an alternative. Why ask a question when the answer seems so...

...apparent.

Selfies, rather than being the exception, should be the primary way of engaging BHSE.

@Caleb I don't want to speak for @MonicaCellio, but it seems to me she did accept at least some Christianity on BHSE. She knew, for instance, that it included discussions of the NT - which in and of itself bends this site towards Christianity. Just think what this site would be if it includes discussions of the book of Mormon. If I participated in site that included the book of Mormon alongside the Old and New Testaments I would want there beliefs partitioned as much as possible as well.

@Caleb As one of the "few others" who "ardently hoped to limit all answers to 'academic' bracketed expressions," I'd like to clarify something. Yes, the scope is too broad in the sense that you're using the word. What I'd like to see (and I think Monica and some others) is to narrow the scope to broaden the audience. What I mean is, we can read the Bible objectively or subjectively, we can read it as a textbook or a devotional book.

If BH.SE focused on the textbook or objective approach, we'd be able to get answers we can all roughly agree on, regardless of our different religious backgrounds. If we read it subjectively or devotionally, we're going to get answers that may apply to our own lives (and may benefit those who agree with us) but may drive others away.

@BruceAlderman that's what I'm talking about! Well said.

I think most people underestimate how much doctrine and theology go into their interpretations so while I agree that we should strive for objective answers, it's a much harder standard than most of us suspect. And requiring it of others when we fail to meet that standard ourselves is uncharitable.

@MonicaCellio What's not true? I didn't say "somewhere", I said "mix and matched with other beliefs". That chat message needs to at least be read in the context of the whole chat message if not the discussion in general.

And I believe my statement was accurate. You don't approve of Christian doctrine being allowed to stand side by side with your content (which you perceive as neutral) as if they were on the same playing field. In spite of nobody having objected to your posts you feel them less welcome for the parallel existence of more overt religious statements in immediate proximity.

I'm not even trying to paint that position as somehow wrong or talk you out of it, but let's call it what it is.

@MonicaCellio Short of doing moderation based on religious viewpoint (which I'm adamantly against even on C.SE never mind on BH!) I don't see how we can accomplish what you want the way you want it. Either the moderator team becomes arbiters and promoters of specific doctrine or they keep their hands off.

I've advocated for keeping their hands off and allowing the assorted doctrinal backgrounds and hermeneutical approaches to speak for themselves—to make or break their own cases for legitimacy based on the caliber of content that they put forward on each question.

Hand in hand with that I've advocated for giving the moderators something they actually can work with to delete content that reduces the signal to noise ratio. As have other moderatiors. Between everybody we've worked out a system whereby answers have to at least express how their systems work rather than just throwing out doctrinal conclusions. That gives us room to do some moderation without it being purely religiously motivated.

And mostly it's Christians who come round peddling their half-baked platitudes without doing any real interpretive work that get thrown out on their bums.

@MonicaCellio I did not mean it as an insult, and saying he was expressing something as a proxy is hardly the same thing as calling you a nefarious puppet-master. That's not an accusation I made so I'm not sure what I'd be apologizing for.

I did mean what I said about the issue he was expressing by proxy (part of his statement was clearly even labeled as your issue he was trying to put into words not his own) isn't an accurate one. I went into detail to explain why, not as an insult to him (none was meant) but by way of keeping all the cards on the table.

And then I went on to pursue his own beef(s) with the site which appear to be distinctly different if possibly related than the ones he opened with.

@MatthewMiller That's an interesting observation, but I think the answer is that BH is not trying to be all things to the entire hermeneutics community. In particular it's not setup as a place to present your ground breaking research and get it peer reviewed as if it was a journal or something. Those are useful things in their place, but BH isn't trying to become that. It's a QnA site. It is only ever going to cater to whatever niche there is in the field of expertise that does fit in a QnA format.

If you try to mash content that really should be presented in a different format into a QnA breakdown just to fit it on this site it is always going to let you down at least a little bit, possibly a lot.

@MatthewMiller If you'd like to discuss that issue further I would suggest a meta post expanding a little on what you just said. I think meta would be a better format to elicit discussion on the issue and arrive at some consensus as to how BH is might or might not be suited (or might be adapted) to handle the issues facing folks in this field of expertise.

@MatthewMiller Yes, she did. She had a significant change of heart in that respect and is no longer comfortable with situations she once didn't have a problem with. Whatever her reasons, I don't think that's a point I have an issue with. People's convictions change and what we have to work with is what they are now.

@MatthewMiller And yes, having a different holy text brought into the mix would be quite a kettle of fish—but what we have is actually much more complicated that that. We have ONE text that's considered central by to TWO completely different religious constructs. They each approach it differently, and having their approaches side by side vying for the most helpful answers on specific questions is bound to be a point of friction.

My point is that our current consensus method of dealing with that is to allow them each to make their best case in the space of their own answer box and to set some ground rules about how they interact with opposing views. Not included in that is limiting the expression of their own views if it's relevant to their hermeneutic approach to a passage. Also not included is limiting the site to the subset of hermeneutical approaches that lend themselves to academic answers.

@BruceAlderman But neither Christians nor Jews view the Bible as a mere textbook. Pretending either group can/will/should approach it only that way is not going to get us anywhere. On the other hand we already do exclude purely devotional content. If answers don't show their work—specifically referring to demonstrating the hermeneutical process they use—we already exclude them on the basis that this isn't just a religious discussion forum.

@BruceAlderman We already are trying to focus on that approach and I think it's pretty easy to see from the most successful answerers on the site right now that said approach is very well received. But it's not up to the moderators to make that happen, its up to the people posting answers and the people voting on them. Moderation isn't the way to mitigate crummy hermeneutics.

As @JonEricson's message hints at, I don't believe there is a clear choice to be made between content that is "objective" and content that is "tainted by doctrine"—personally I don't believe we can or ever will get entirely away from the latter, but more than that I don't think it's the job of moderators to even attempt that discernment. The kinds of situations that are actionable for a moderator should not be the domain expertise of the site.

As long is I have a monologue going on here (because that's what libraries are for right?) let me throw one more thing out there. This is not directed at anyone in particular per-se and is not a response to anything that's been said, but I do think it's relevant to note in this context.

We could all argue about site direction until we are blue in the face and it wouldn't make the site into what we want it to be. Likewise no amount of exclusion filters (by themselves) would ever serve to make it what we want. Only regular contributions of the kind we do want to see are going to ever set the stage for realizing BH's potential.

To this end folks like @FrankLuke and @Davïd (there are more, I just picked a couple prolific ones) do more to shape the site through regularly posting exemplary high-caliber content than all the rest of us clowns blabbering away in chat and on meta do put together. (cf Luke 10:37b)

@Susan I can see throughout the Pentateuch that the patriarchs did not follow an established ritual when bless his children. They did what they thought was right. If Isaac wanted to eat before to bless Esau, that was his own choice.

By the way, I have put my 2¢. (feel free to edit or improve the wording, which I would appreciate)

^^^^ = sermonette?

@Davïd Moderation is very efficient. I could not see the sermonette. :-)