REL 1300 Fall 2009, Comments on Paper 3
How not to begin a paper:
Fame, fortune,
wealth and war, these are some of the things that come to mind when
thinking of religion. However, despite some of its uglier by-products,
religion has played a vital role in virtually every part of society
since the beginning of recorded history. It has fulfilled many
functions, including trying to explain the origin of the universe...
This could be the
opening to a book about the nature of religion. It could also be placed
at the start of any of the essays you have been set for this course,
and it would add no worthwhile content to any of them. I'm not looking
for generalities about the history of religions - I want specific
information about these two religions, focussing on a particular
historical period. You might have been told that a good opening should
catch the attention of the reader, and in many cases, this is correct,
but not when writing essays for this class. You don't have to begin by
persuading me that the topic is an interesting or important one - I
chose the topic for you. Every word of your paper should be
demonstrating that you have been engaged in careful research.
How to begin a paper:
Let's analyze
these two fragments:
And He said to
him, "You shall love the Lord your God...This is the first and greatest
commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as
yourself. On these two commandments depend all the law and the
prophets. (Mark 12: 36-40)
It happened
again that a certain stranger came before Shammai and said to him:
-"I will
become a proselyte providing you teach me the whole Torah while I'm
standing on one foot."
-Shammai
knocked him down with the builder's rule in his hand.
The stranger
came before Hillel, who made him a proselyte.
He told him:
-"What is
hateful to you do not do to your neighbor." (The Babylonian Talmud: 31a)
Here we have
the summarized idea of the basis of the two religions.
Straight away, we are down to business, analyzing carefully chosen
primary texts. Of course, analysis is a tricky matter.
How to not to deal with texts:
"The Roman
officials displayed little concern either for Judaism and its dictates
or for the economic well-being of the country. Economic decline
proceeded quickly, as did the activities of the growing rebel factions.
Anarchy was fast approaching, and soon the nation would be aflame with
rebellion and then destruction. (Schiffman: From Text to Tradition, p.149)
After
analyzing this text, we can conclude that Christianity surged during a
period of time of decline and unrest...
The source is a
good one, but it does not require analysis. Analysis means taking a
complicated source and trying to understand it. I might analyze an
argument by Immanuel Kant, or analyze the synoptic Gospels in order to
determine their historical veracity. But Schiffman's text is
straightforward: the sentence following the quotation could begin "So
Christianity surged..."
According to
Victor Eppstein...the Sadducees were not the party of the
sacerdotal establishment, the Temple. Instead he proposes the
following theory:
"It is sufficient
for our purpose to state without argument that in this writer's opinion
the Sadducees began as a political faction which supported the
legitimacy of the Hasmonean throne (as against the messianic
expectation) and the ruler's authority over the judiciary." (Eppstein,
"When and How Were the Sadducees Excommunicated", Journal of Biblical Literature,
Volume 85, No.2, pp. 213-244).
It is clear after
analyzing this text that the Sadducees combined politics and economics
with the Temple, which Jesus disapproved of...
The trouble is,
we don't have an analysis of Eppstein's theory. That would require
explaining why he disagrees with the normal view that the Sadducees
were the party of the sacerdotal establishment, and evaluating his
arguments. This would require following the references in this
particular article: what Eppstein is saying in this paragraph is that
he doesn't want to repeat arguments, published in other articles, that
establish his theory about the origins of the Sadducees. In any case,
if Eppstein's point is correct, the Sadducees are not the party of the
Temple, and so an action of protest in the Temple would not be aimed at
the Sadducees and their policies. (This is the opposite of what I've
been teaching; Eppstein's theory about the Sadducees is not widely
accepted). The passage from Eppstein is being used to justify a
conclusion that doesn't really follow. Think about phrases like "It is
clear". That is a very strong phrase, indicating absolute confidence,
as though no other theories were possible. Why not "It is possible" or
even "It seems likely"?
Here is another example:
'Do you see all
these great buildings?' replied Jesus, 'Not one stone here will be left
on another; every one will be thrown down.' ...(Mark 13:2)
It is obvious
that a prediction like this made the people who killed him mad. They
all felt bad because what he said was true, plus they knew he had not
done anything to deserve being crucified.
Why "obvious"?
Why not "probable" or "possible"? You are assuming that Jesus really
made this prediction and that his enemies knew about it (in Mark's
Gospel, this is a conversation with his disciples). As a matter of
fact, I think it is likely that this kind of prediction was one of the
factors leading to Jesus' execution. I'm not objecting to the
conclusion, but to the level of confidence.
The next sentence is rather odd however. The prediction might
have given his enemies reason to kill him, but it came true roughly
forty years after the event. When the Temple fell, how many of his
executioners were still alive? Did they connect those events with
Jesus' words forty years ago? They may have had other things on their
minds by then. Did they know
he had done nothing worthy of crucifixion? Maybe they thought they had
done the right thing - their motive for executing him might well have
been to prevent the kind of events that did eventually lead to the fall
of the Temple. I'm not raising these other possibilities as
certainties. I'm not trying to persuade you that I do know how his
executioners felt about him, I'm trying to persuade you that you don't.
Back to REL 1300