They are off-topic, but there's another way to get what you're looking for.
We have already established[citation needed] that questions must start from the text, not from doctrine. The cited question starts from the text, so so far that seems fine. However, either explicitly or implicitly aski...
In general I think questions of the form "What does x mean?" are better than "Does x mean y?"
And I think it would be good to encourage self-edits towards that end; but, I'm not sure I can agree that they are inherently off-topic.
"However, either explicitly or implicitly asking if the reference is to Jesus introduces a doctrinal precondition into the question. That's a violation of our existing policy." is the part that is bothering me
I'm wondering, for instance, whether a question like "Does a σπεῖραν refer to a Roman detachment of soliders?" would likewise be off-topic.
This is essentially the same form as "Does this verse in Micah refer to Jesus?"
It would also seem to rule out questions like Ray's here, which I think is a fine question.
Which again, is not Hebrew Scriptures from a Christian perspective, but does "introduce a doctrinal precondition into the question" as much as the question about Jesus in Micah.
(Ray's question is "Is there a sacramentalism in the Bread of Life discourse?")
But all in all I think your gradient of bad to good is spot on.
@Soldarnal help me out since I don't know Greek: why do you think/ask if σπεῖραν means a Roman detachment? Because of something in the grammar? Because reputable sources translate it that way? Because of something in the context? Whatever it is, say that in the question and we're both happy, right? You've shown some work and put forth a possibility; those who don't make the same automatic leap you did can see how to get there.
@Soldarnal actually, Ray's question is "is there a sacramentalism, or is this a metaphor for something else, such as...?". Raising multiple possibilities helps move it from a "validate my doctrine" question. Also, he explains what the problem he's struggling with is. I might word-smith some, but I don't see a problem with the gist of his question.
@Soldarnal I made a minor tweak to my answer based on your comments.
@JonEricson @Caleb (and everybody else) -- the question we're talking about now is an example of what I was talking about with you yesterday elsewhere: the question was asked early during (private?) beta, and while votes are secret, the odds are good that the voting significantly reflects people who (in many cases) aren'there any more.
It seems better to me to ask the question anew, move my new answer to the new question, add other answers that people want to support, and close/lock (historical) the original question. The current community, the people who are affected, can then vote on level ground. What do you think?
@JackDouglas you said in your comment (the one I was replying to) that "biblical studies" fails 3 of the 4 points in the question. I was saying that the current title does, too. I don't know if those are the right points to consider in a name (maybe there are more too?); I'm just saying that I don't understand how "biblical studies" is worse in that respect. (I think it's better, to be clear.)
@JackDouglas I'm sure it seemed right, maybe even was right, when the question was asked 17 months ago. IMO it's not right now. This is one of the problems with old, early questions -- things change, but the artifacts don't. When do we update versus asking anew?
17 months later, I don't think the title is working the way this question says it is. (It probably was then; we've changed.) On the specific points: 1. Most of our questions are about exegesis (as noted in the question), and I don't know if people will get from "herm" to "applied herm". 2. It does quietly exclude those people, but it also quietly excludes some people we actually want (many non-C experts don't know the word). I'm here only because I saw it on Area 51 and Googled the word; others on Mi Yodeya shrugged. 3. No comment. :-) 4. Because 1 isn't working this can't either, IMO. — Monica Cellio13 secs ago
@JonEricson @Caleb (and everybody else) -- the question we're talking about now is an example of what I was talking about with you yesterday elsewhere: the question was asked early during (private?) beta, and while votes are secret, the odds are good that the voting significantly reflects people who (in many cases) aren'there any more.
It seems better to me to ask the question anew, move my new answer to the new question, add other answers that people want to support, and close/lock (historical) the original question. The current community, the people who are affected, can then vote on level ground. What do you think?
@MonicaCellio I'm not sure it matters if they are here any more and any way we can't possibly tell: they probably more or less represent what other new arrivals would vote anyway IMO
We've been told off for re-asking questions before…
…the problem is that is can seem like we intend to keep asking until we get the 'right' answer
(iirc it was about the site name question and I can't remember who told us off or where!)
@JackDouglas, in general I agree that it can look like fishing (not my intent). In the case of "foundation" questions that were resolved really early on, I think it's fair to ask "what does the community that's actually participating here want?", and leftover votes from people who left can distort the perception. We shouldn't do this often, but this is a case where I think we should start fresh.
@MonicaCellio Ok; from that perspective, you (and by "you" I mean "@Jon") might be asking slightly the wrong question there. He writes:
> From a Christian perspective, this a fairly standard lens through which to look at the Tanakh
I think the question becomes, "Is there an established field of study that seeks to understand this text from the Christian perspective (that is, one which points to Jesus)"
@Shog9, I wonder if we're talking at cross-purposes or if I just don't understand you (entirely possible it's the latter!). I'm trying to ask the meta-meta question of "when and how do we revisit really old questions whose voters might not even still be around?". This is one such. I'm not looking to reopen every old question, but this is formative, so yes we need to ask the right question, but is it kosher to open a new question, or do we maintain the old one with its votes, or what?
@MonicaCellio this is a common question on MSO; my usual advice is, don't re-ask old questions unless you have some new direction in which you'd like to take the discussion - IOW, if what you wish to ask is already implied by the existing question, or the response you wish to post would work as an answer there (or is already represented by an answer there), then you're just wasting people's time by raising it again.
I don't mean to hash and
rehash this subject over and over, but I think that my understanding has developed to the point where I believe I can offer something somewhat concrete.
Over the course of this site, we've struggled a bit with how much doctrine we should allow and what types of doctrinal...
FWIW, I try not to insert my own opinions on the topic into these discussions very often but... I tend to think lumping Christian exegesis into "doctrine" has been rather counter-productive here.
@JonEricson right, and if somebody asserts (without showing his work) that some passage in, say, Exodus, is about the trinity, how is that not presupposing doctrine? I agree that "doctrine" is not a good word; I've asked before what word we should use, but haven't gotten answers.
yeah; we have a perfectly good site for doctrinal questions. What this site needs to be focused on is analysis of the text itself; however, that doesn't imply analysis done in a vacuum... I rather think y'all should be striving for a system where, if there exist multiple fields/perspectives/traditions for analysis then an expert in any one of them can post an answer (assuming the question doesn't specify).
To re-use @Jon's programming analogy from yesterday: answers to questions on JavaScript are free to utilize JQuery, Prototype.js, etc. as seems appropriate to the answerer.
@Shog9 agreed -- and by implication, that means questions that are so narrow as to cut off those multiple fields/perspectives/traditions are weak questions. This is not the place to come to validate your doctrine; if your question is "is what my doctrine says correct?", go elsewhere.
@MonicaCellio I think the way to resolve the meta-question is for me to write up a little after action report about how we resolved the original question on the main site.
@MonicaCellio Again, I think there needs to be some sort of delineation here - it's one thing to ask for analysis from a specific direction, another to ask for support of a specific doctrine (the latter is what C.SE/J.SE are for)
Richard nailed that bit in his examples
I think it's fair to say y'all don't particularly want doctrinal questions. But that says nothing about questions that seek analysis from a Christian (or other) perspective - you have to be able to make a distinction there, and that's probably where you should focus your efforts rather than trying to come up with some measure for "how much doctrine" is allowable.
As a side note: don't forget that (particularly as the site grows) the population of askers and answerers will tend to diverge considerably - you can't expect the same background knowledge, or impose the same requirements even if doing so made sense (which I don't really think it does).
@Shog9 I feel like Richard's guideline (above) does a great job of delineating the line in questions. It's answers that are the sticking point right now. Is that correct @MonicaCellio?
@MonicaCellio That's kind of what I was getting at with my note about setting requirements on askers. You need something that's actually going to make sense to the folks who you want asking questions here - not just the folks writing answers.
@JonEricson what do you think of my guidance on how to present that more appropriately? @Shog9, askers don't have to get everything right, right off, if we have a guideline that editors can follow.
For reference: Skeptics imposes citation requirements on both questions and answers - but the requirements for sources are rather different; question sources need only be notable in some broad fashion (newspaper articles, chain emails, etc. are fine)
@Shog9 and I'm not going that far. I'm saying that if questions present a possible interpretation -- which is in keeping with "what have you tried", so that's fine -- that they should show some path there.
@MonicaCellio If you're asking someone to "show their work" and they either don't or the work they've shown is insufficient... You may be able to edit that into something acceptable, but not without guessing. That's a heavy load to place on editors.
@Shog9 the edit in this case would be to turn "what does this mean? does this mean x?" into just "what does this mean?" -- and invite the OP to show why X might be plausible if that's important to his question.
@MonicaCellio There should be a difference between an on-topic (but poorly-asked) question and an off-topic question. If you say "X is off-topic, Y is acceptable" then editing to fix means saying "You asked about X, but you intended to ask about Y" - this isn't uncommon, but it's not a panacea either - some folks really will want to ask about X, and you need to close those questions.
So for instance: if I ask for a carrot cake recipe on Seasoned Advice, my question will be closed. If I ask how to fix my carrot cake recipe (it's too dry), that's on-topic (but there are requirements for how I should ask it).
On the other hand... somebody out there wants me to have this discussion now: one-on-one study appt with my rabbi just got postponed. :-)
@Shog9 I tried to extend your analogy but can't because (AFAIK) Seasoned Advice doesn't have something like doctrinal differences. Suppose there were people there who strongly believed that all things are improved with bacon, and others who strongly believed that that's totally Wrong. Now suppose you asked "how do I make this less dry? should I add bacon?", how should that be handled?
@Shog9 only the militant ones, I guess. The vegetarians I know generally say "I don't eat meat; you do whatever you want", not the PETA-style "meat is evil!" folks.
Hopefully this site will be great for carnivores, vegetarians, and vegans alike. By using the interesting tag/ignored tag system, vegans can hopefully mostly ignore all the different discussions of meat preparation.
Can we try to maintain the convention that questions dealing with meat are tagge...
But yeah, don't try to take that too far - I only intended to give an example of the sort of question that could be converted from OT to OnT with a willing asker.
What is it?
The XY problem is asking about your attempted solution rather than your actual problem.
That is, you are trying to solve problem X, and you think solution Y would work, but instead of asking about X when you run into trouble, you ask about Y.
The Problem
This can lead to frustrati...
There you go. Now, when you encounter something like that you have a couple of choices: you can guess at what X is and edit, or you can ask what X is and wait. The former is a gamble, the latter is slower.
@JonEricson If you're doing this long after a question is asked, editing is your only option - but now you have to account for existing answers too.
If you're staring at a new question, editing means it can stay open (and be answered), closing means you have time to wait for replies (or spend more time editing), leaving it alone means you might attract crap answers.
We have already established[citation needed] that questions must start from the text, not from doctrine. The cited question starts from the text, so so far that seems fine. However, asking if the reference is to Jesus makes the question about Jesus, a doctrinal question, instead of making it ab...
@JonEricson I think the policy worked. I still feel like "the policy" is in a few people's heads and not actually written down somewhere that we can point people to when they ask these kinds of questions. I am proposing my answer as that statement. But no ego; if there's a better way then fine. But reverse-engineering old meta posts isn't the way to go.
@MonicaCellio I'm thinking of closing the meta-question you answered as "too localized". I think the whole discussion (except your answer) happened before we had a clear guideline.
@MonicaCellio I have to be honest, I'm uncomfortable with your answer and I can't really explain why. Tonally, it just seems off somehow. It's the same problem I have with my mobile post, which I'm seriously considering deleting.
@JonEricson please do not delete the mobile post. (Close it if you like.) My answer there collects a lot of other links that I don't want to lose. That and my answer to Scott's "is this site viable?" question really gather together a lot of the issues (from my POV) in one (ok two) place(s). Don't make me do that work again please.
@JonEricson I would like to understand what, if you're able to figure it out. (Did you look at the revised version?)
@MonicaCellio This question is much more comfortable for me since it's both my question and answer. ;) I got one (joke) downvote on the answer, but I think we agree more or less, and I added the faq to it.
@MonicaCellio If you'd like to suggest a change to the FAQ, feel free to suggest it on the meta post. (I think it's a good idea, but I haven't thought about how to do it.)
And if those assumptions are challenged, posters should clarify. Nobody has perfect knowledge of what's "obvious", and I don't think you can enumerate them. — Monica Cellio4 mins ago
@Monica I don't agree with this but that comment thread is getting unwieldy
to take an extreme example: someone could comment with a question like "why do you think that Paul was from Tarsus"
maybe you can answer in the comments but I'm suggesting there should be no need to add that info to the answer
just because someone doesn't know doesn't make the answer at fault: I want us to assume familiarity with the texts because I want the site to be for experts on the texts
am I making any sense?
same applies for obvious logic: we are aiming at people who are thinkers: connect the dots, but not in excruciating detail
@Jack, ok, I see what you're saying, and that would be kind of a dumb question to ask on a gospel question. Now try this one: "why do you think Paul's writings apply to this question about animals that chew the cud?". I'm saying that if it's not obvious to "a reasonable person", it should be clarified. Not "a pedant who thinks the guys on Skeptics are wusses". And no, I can't lay out a definitiion of "a reasonable person" (or "offensive" or "pornography" or...); life is full of ambiguity.
@MonicaCellio agreed: actually that is the opposite of what I'm talking about because that question comes from a knowledge of the text, not a lack of knowledge
Put another way, if a challenge is itself challenged, that's udeful information too. I think we've seen that, though I can't call examples to mind. (Might have involved Ron.)
@JackDouglas assumptions within the immediate scope are different from broad ones; I don't think you specified. If we're talking about the revelation at Sinai, assumptions about Moshe's prophecy go without saying. if we're talking about a gospel, axioms about Jesus hold. But crossing those lines is different; just because some text says Jesus displaces torah, that doesn't make it a given in all contexts.
also to be clear, I'm not saying quoting the text isn't often helpful, I'm just saying we needn't make every link a mandatory requirement of all good answers: as long as the answer is basically coherent and we can follow the steps (assuming we are familiar with all the texts the answerer is drawing on) that should be enough IMO
I'd rather links and supporting references were judicious than comprehensive if you see what I mean
@JackDouglas err, maybe we're not clear. I'm not saying you have to quote a specific passage of text; I'm saying you have to say "according to X, Jesus is God", not just "Jesus is God", *on a question where that axiom isn't part of the basis (like it is on a gospel question).
"According to the gospels", "according to Paul", "according to X hermeneutic" is all fine, but if you're on a tanakh question, "jesus is God" is not axiomatic so needs something.
(And "not axiomatic" means "not obvious". Remember, we can't expect the reader to know "oh, that's Bob answering, so of course he's working from such-and-such". Answers need to stand on their own merits.)
@JonEricson if the question were about that single verse I wouldn't have answered that way. (Probably wouldn't have answered at all.) Now that the question has answers, though, it shouldn't get that drastic an edit. A new question on that would be a fine idea, though.
@MonicaCellio Ok. In that case, I think it's really a hermeneutics-approach question. The passages simply illustrate a problem, so they don't need to be in the tags.
But I'm not sure what, if any, other tags are required.
@JonEricson ah, I see what you're getting at. (Sorry, didn't immediately connect that to what I last said about that Q.) Your tagging proposal makes sense to me.
Last night I was browsing contradictions and investigated anything that didn't have any other tag. In many cases that meant missing books but here, as you say, not so clear.
@JackDouglas I'm not sure that's quite right, but I don't feel strongly. I think it's a "meh" question; as the owner of an up-voted answer I'm an involved party. :-) (Locks prevent votes.)
> That's some sublime prescience you've demonstrated. Also, I must ask, "my right what?"
the original quote is from The Great Gatsby
which is having something of an anniversary today
sorry. just venting. wealthy american christians usually piss me off and this time it's particularly frustrating because this person is someone whom i would actually consider a friend. :)
here is the context of the whole quote which is why i chose the little "prescience" dig
> Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me. They possess and enjoy early, and it does something to them, makes them soft where we are hard, and cynical where we are trustful, in a way that, unless you were born rich, it is very difficult to understand. They think, deep in their hearts, that they are better than we are because we had to discover the compensations and refuges of life for ourselves. Even when they enter deep into our world or sink below us, they still think that they are better than we
sigh. hooray for literacy.
i have a meeting. thanks for listening, everyone :)
Is this on topic? I'm having a hard time deciding. It appears to begin from the text, but it is more of a theological/philosophical question about God than about the texts themselves:
Joh 10:30 I and my Father are one.
Joh 14:28 Ye have heard how I said unto you, I go away, and come again
unto you. If ye loved me, ye would rejoice, because I said, I go unto
the Father: for my Father is greater than I.
see Rule of Non-Contradiction
According to the linked rule, t...
@DanO'Day The first line in the top question reads: "There have been entire books written on the concept of the Trinity and how it all works together." So I think the question is actually too broad. A good answer would need to construct and defend a theory of the Trinity.
@DanO'Day I think you're right: he should ask it there, not here.
@JonEricson ah, good point. I voted off-topic (following the herd :-) ), but a mod-close gets to pick the close reason. I won't object to you changing that.
Muses out loud: we have 1k questions and 2k answers, so 3k votable posts. And... 8 people with the Civic Duty badge. (This observation is not tied to any discussion here; I happened to be looking at my badge list and wondered how common that one was, so clicked through. I was expecting more.)
Also on the subject of badges, my reaction on getting Outspoken was not "hey, badge!" so much as "hey, ten people who have (a) been in chat at all and (b) been active enough to star things!" (let alone my things). :-)
Yeah, pursuing badges might mean it's time to think about what's really important in life, but I like the pleasant little surprises that they can bring.
@swasheck you can see the complete list. Or you can ignore it; it's not critical funcationality, but more a (very partial) indication of how some aspects of the site are doing. (The list shows how many of each have been awarded.)
@Soldarnal you have? (I've been doing various reviews of old questions -- big tags, single answers, etc, and found a lot of things along the way that I hadn't voted on the first time, or hadn't seen.)
@MonicaCellio Yeah, someone voted up 5 of my old questions, so I was curious if someone new was voting or what, and clicked over to the weekly report and you have 150 upvotes this wee
@MonicaCellio I don't find that surprising. Only a very small percentage of people that float through have any level of expertise in the field at all. In a highly technical field like this, that means a lot of time they have no idea what they are looking at even when they read a post that interests them. Not seeing high levels of voting beyond the people that also participate regularly doesn't surprise me, although it is something we should encourage.
More interesting to me, it looks like we have four people with strong and regular opinions on meta and a couple dozen that throw in their 2c every so often when something hits their radar.
@Soldarnal that's what I thought you meant, but I don't see 150 there so thought we were looking at different things. Or maybe it's a rolling total and that was a day or two ago? Shrug.
BTW, I just drifted in here before bed, but I haven't been on SE all day and chat transcripts look daunting. Anything pressing or revolutionary today before I hit the hay?
@Soldarnal I see what happened now. The vote count is below the rep number, but if (like me) you increase font sizes in your browser, it disappears. I dropped the font size and saw it. (Then put it back so I could, y'know, read. :-) ) I hate it when web design can't cope with accessibility affordances -- just work or, failing that, show me that something is missing, rather than failing silently.
As a result of recent debate over whether certain answers would be considered acceptable on this site, we posed the question "What are we looking for in answers?". In my foray into the issue, I noted that of the two main classes of questions we field (questions about the field of hermeneutics and...
@JackDouglas I felt bad that I pushed some non-retag updates down the page, though. Everybody, please scan down based on time, not just number of questions.
@JackDouglas I started to work on tag wikis (I was going through the herm-methods tag, cross-referencing to specific-method tags) but didn't get very far. Maybe later.
@MonicaCellio I agree with Jack. Don't mind as long as you're trying to make the site better. There is still the Questions tab to see new stuff and we've not had a slew of activity lately that was buried or anything.
Fair warning that y'all will probably get some random questions here in chat about tags. We seem to be pretty inconsistent about what merits a subject-specific tag versus not.
What is it?
The XY problem is asking about your attempted solution rather than your actual problem.
That is, you are trying to solve problem X, and you think solution Y would work, but instead of asking about X when you run into trouble, you ask about Y.
The Problem
This can lead to frustrati...
Joh 10:30 I and my Father are one.
Joh 14:28 Ye have heard how I said unto you, I go away, and come again
unto you. If ye loved me, ye would rejoice, because I said, I go unto
the Father: for my Father is greater than I.
see Rule of Non-Contradiction
According to the linked rule, t...
The Library
The Library