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.
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