After reading the blogs of professional scholars for several months I noticed a striking gap between the scholarly community and the non-scholarly world. The gap isn’t cultural or economic. The gap isn’t even knowledge, well, it is, but only indirectly. The problem isn’t that knowledge can’t be acquired by the non-scholar. The processes, methods and sources used by the non-scholar are the source of this problem. It is the process of acquisition that creates this gap. Unfortunately, this gap can be harmful in a number of ways (to be discussed in later parts).
We all know that scholars spend or have spent an extraordinary amount of time in their sources. We also know that most have some formal training in methodology, linguistics, philosophy, history, archaeology and a host of other topics. We benefit greatly from their research and publications. The challenge is that for all those who are not professional scholars and still desire to grapple with the texts, struggle with questions and find answers it is sometimes takes quite an effort.
The struggle, I think, is due to the fact that the non-scholar is relegated to the world of secondary texts. For many this is as close to the source that they can get. But should this be the case? When you compare the knowledge obtained by the scholar using all of his or her training with that of the knowledge obtained by the non-scholar through secondary and tertiary texts the difference is quite disconcerting. I think that part of the problem also stems from the trust non-scholars implicitly placed on these type of works. This trust extends too far. This may have very much to do with the lack of methods for critically evaluating such texts coupled with the lack of familiarity with the primary sources being discussed. I realize we are talking about fundamentally different types of people, but, again, does it need to be that way?
As a result of this I’m attempting to sketch out a methodology for non-scholars that allows them to approach their studies in a way that will, hopefully, provide the individual with a more complete and accurate picture of the subject. I realize that this may be a large undertaking and, because of that, I want to limit the methodology to just biblical studies. It may be that once we establish this methodology that it can be dropped into a variety of other fields of study, but we’ll cross that bridge when we get there.
In this first part I’m going to outline some rough ideas that will hopefully receive some comments from scholars and non-scholars. Initially the goal of this methodology should be to balance the requirements of proper methods of analysis, the use of primary sources and the challenges of selecting secondary sources. Below I’ve sketched out these categories. I think the best approach will be to determine further subcategories and whether these are in the “must have” or “nice to have” class.
1. Prerequisites
2. Methods of Analysis
3. Primary Sources
4. Secondary Sources
In Part Two I hope the spend some time on each of these categories and discuss the various options available to the non-scholar.
