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Charles Ellwood provides a brief overview of the Oriental Institute's plans to place all of its publications online for free.  Also, he updates us on ETANA project and AWOL:

The Oriental Institute was one of the founding members of the ETANA partnership, and the Research Archives gave access to many of books scanned for inclusion in ETANA Core Texts. As of today (1 July 2008) there are 355 digitized books and one developing resource (eTACT) in ETANA Core Texts. In response to numerous request, I present here in AWOL - The Ancient World Online - 6 all of those titles in a single list organized alphabetically by author's name. 

Happy Reading!

Duane Smith at Abnormal Interests (highly recommended to add to your RSS reader) presents a very candid and helpful response to my four propositions in the previous post, Presuppositional Scholarship, part 2.  Duane responds as a secular humanist from an empiricalist viewpoint.  I appreciate his concurrence with the first and third propositions (maybe even the fourth), and in view of this congruence we agree that presuppositions mold one’s thinking even though we might disagree about certain aspects of these presuppositions. 

My understanding of the second proposition, if nothing else, needs to be clarified further in light of his response.

Certainly I am not defining “religious belief” as strictly cultic practice for to do so would not make sense in the argument.  Rather I am defining it more broadly as a conflation of definitions two and four from “Religion” on the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary: (2) “a personal set or institutionalized system of religious attitudes, beliefs, and practices” and (4) “a cause, principle, or system of beliefs held to with ardor and faith.”  Admittedly not every belief about reality is a religious belief; yet certain firmly held perceptions do border on religious convictions.  Obviously no secularist would admit that he has religious beliefs or adheres to a religious system; however, to use the well-worn aphorism: “If it looks like a duck and it quacks like a duck, it is a duck.” 

An example may be helpful:  My nephew may deny a scientific theory, say Newton’s laws of motion (or for that matter reject science all together).  In so doing, he has made a claim as to the validity of a conception of how bodies move within our universe.  Although not a scientist, he has made a value statement based upon his understanding of science a.k.a. scientific beliefs, thus he declares truth through the lenses of his preconceived scientific framework.

Let me give another example more to the point:  I have never met a person who does not have an opinion about god, whether one believes in a certain faith’s manifestation of god or in one of her own making.  Such an opinion would be considered a “religious belief.”  Now would not a claim that there was not a god also amount to a “religious” belief albeit a negative one?  I suppose that one might say “I do not know one way or another (about god);” yet that too is a statement about a possible god’s muted nature.  In any case, a theological position is expounded even if to prove there is not god.  One must ask, then, what is more religious than theology?  In sum, asserting a negative is not the same as not making an assertion.  Thus, my claim, all are religious, would be valid.  Not for the purpose of proclaiming religion as part of natural essence of humanity, but to say it is a part of one’s preconceived conception of the universe. 

One need not practice religion or be “religious” to speak on issues of god.  However, the only way to be atheological and areligious is not to make any claim at all.  I suppose it is possible to demonstrate that an individual has or is living that fits such a profile, yet in the difficulty of finding such an individual my point has been proven (admitting though that the proposition may need to be rephrased: “Everyone [except for Joe Bob who does not think at any time about anything seriously] is religious”).

Finally, the purpose of proclaiming the universality of religious conceptions was not meant to belittle or press religious tendencies upon the self-proclaimed “non-religious,” but to acknowledge that everyone has preconceived ideas not just about the world but about the presence, or absence, of the divine.  This is vital to my argument that Fox’s “secular scholasticism” amounts to nonsensical prattle as it fails to admit that everyone who comes to a text brings with him certain predetermined ideas that are not abandoned by pronouncing oneself secular.

In the latest SBL Forum, Dr. Fox graciously answers several challenges to his position paper, Bible Scholarship and Faith-Based Study: My View (DH article: Presuppositional Scholarship); however, his rejoinder betrays the true problems inherent in his position.

Fox masks his opinion behind the idea that secularism is non-religious.  He concludes therefore that his way is better because it is not compelled by some outside force (i.e. God) to interpret texts one way or another.  However, his argument fails on the fact that secularists fall victim to exactly the same hermeneutical problems as religious individuals.

The religious individual understands certain stories based on her presuppositions; thus a story about God bringing about a natural disaster is understood as God’s judgment upon humanity.  The secularist, on the other hand, must declare the story void of theological truth (or at least ignore this view) and then seek to understand the author’s ethic or the redaction or literary situation apart from the divine.  Secularism limits the possible interpretations and conclusions.  Hence, the exact same argument against religious study, according to Fox, can be levied against secular study.  Each position faults on the side of allowing preconceived attitudes, beliefs and practices taint possible scholarly conclusions (one with predilection for divine influence and the other against).

Let us examine Fox’s arguments for secularism more closely.  He asserts:

Clearly the "faith-base" advocates have an agenda that reaches into the classroom, including in the secular university. (Or do they have a special religiously neutral hermeneutic for use in teaching?) In this context, faith-based teaching amounts to religious propaganda to a captive audience. Secularity has been, if I may put it this way, a great blessing to Bible study and research, for it allow [sic] its practitioners and teachers to work together with full and open communication. This seems like a rather important "pragmatic" argument.

It is amazing to find that secularism has no agenda in teaching.  Is Fox merely naive or mendacious?  Secularity is not bleach of purpose nor is it above reproach.  Is it not interesting that everyone thinks his approach to study is correct wherein the other poor soul is morally corrupted by her presuppositions?

How then should the diversity of the university be honored?  Fox states:

 I especially appreciate James E. Bowley’s introducing the issue of teaching and emphasizing that the common ground of secularity is crucial to Bible teaching in a diverse university.

My experience with “secular” education is that it is anything but diverse and tolerant of alternative viewpoints (particularly antagonistic to religious views), neither is it “common ground.”  Secularism may be the most intolerant of any religion.  Lest we forget, diversity in the university comes on the heels of religious freedom instituted not by the secularist but the religious in predominantly religious institutions of learning.

A better approach to “secular” education is not to act as if diversity is honored in the religion of secularism but to present the viewpoints of each and let the debate of ideas seek truth.

Fox further notes:

For those of us who teach in state-sponsored universities, secularity in the classroom is essential to professional integrity — and effectiveness. In that setting, presuppositions of faith stifle honest communication, and rational analysis gives way to pronouncements and preachments, often of an angry sort.

Professional integrity would be better served by an honest exchange of ideas starting with a candid presentation of one’s presuppositions and openness to differing opinions.  The excess by one group should not lead to its stifling by another.

Finally, diversity does not mean that all agree on one point of view (i.e. the “common ground” of secularism); rather it should respect the ideas of each individual and seek truth as a means of unification.

Below are four helpful propositions that should serve as a beginning point for scholarly as well as pedagogical advancement and conversation:

Proposition 1

Truth exists.  If it does not, there is no reason to argue this point—such an argument would be self-refuting.

Proposition 2

Everyone is religious.  Each chooses a system of beliefs be it Christianity or atheism, Jewish or Muslim, Buddhism or Hinduism, religious or secularist.

Proposition 3

Everyone has presuppositions.  The humanist sees the world through the lenses of mankind; the theist through that of God.  These colored glasses tint everything one way or another.

Proposition 4 (more of a corollary)

No one is exempt from presuppositions or religious belief. 

Let us not hide behind the idea that we are the ones who do not have the problem of presuppositions, but they do.  Everyone is beholden to certain preconceived notions of truth.  Each must accept that he is constrained by the above propositions, then the search for proposition one may ensue.

Parshablog has a very useful tool for converting Aramaic square script into Latin character transliteration in Unicode. Check it out here!

???????????? ??????? ????????? ???? ???????????? ?????? ????????

b?r??ši?y?  b?r???  ??l?hi?ym  ????  hašš?ma?yim  w?????  h????re?

(HT: Aantekeningen bij de Bijbel)

UPDATED (originally posted February 28, 2006)

There has been a lot of discussion around the blogosphere about the place of religious presuppositions in scholarly research. It began with an article on the SBL forum by Mary Bader and a few informal comments. Michael Fox’s article, Bible Scholarship and Faith-Based Study: My View, launched a frenzy of responses by the biblioblogs. I even caught the bug and commented on Dr. Cathey’s blog about Dr. Fox’s presuppositions.

This discussion is worthy of careful contemplation as it speaks to the very heart of ANE/biblical studies. Please feel free to leave a comment concerning these issues.

***UPDATE***

The SBL Forum has continued the discussion mentioned above with a followup article by Jacques Berlinerblau entitled "The Unspeakable in Biblical Scholarship." It is well worth reading as Berlinerblau demonstrates the solecism of Fox’s so-called "secular academic, religiously-neutral hermeneutic." Here is an excerpt:

I can only wonder from where this hermeneutic is supposed to emerge. In this discipline, there is no organic sociological base from which such an approach can develop. And this is because nearly every single one of my colleagues has entered this discipline qua Christian or Jew. (True, they sometimes exit as something else, but that’s another story altogether.) What results is a situation in which biblical scholarship’s "secular" wing is more like a reform religious or liberal religious wing. If one of the classic definitions of secularism centers on the holding of agnostic or atheistic beliefs, then biblical scholarship (and religious studies in general) is "secular" in a way that no other discipline in the Academy is secular.

***UPDATE 2***

Cafe Apoclypsis has two interviews (with Craig Bloomberg & Scot McKnight) on the topic of faith and scholarship.

***UPDATE 3***
Chris Heard at Higgaion shares some excellent thoughts on Cafe Apoclypsis’ interview with Thomas L. Thompson .