Changes

I'll begin by pointing out that my first image in this article is anything but British and reserved; instead, it is exploding with Teutonic grandiosity!  Maybe I should explain that since I have discovered your sensitivity I must now exploit it to see how much you can withstand!  I did manage to restrain myself enough to hold off on the iron cross--that might have hastily ended my career here!  :)

I'll begin by pointing out that my first image in this article is anything but British and reserved; instead, it is exploding with Teutonic grandiosity!  Maybe I should explain that since I have discovered your sensitivity I must now exploit it to see how much you can withstand!  I did manage to restrain myself enough to hold off on the iron cross--that might have hastily ended my career here!  :)

Secondly, as a writer/editor I'm very familiar with my strengths and weaknesses.  Using this article as an example I will make a statement that can be generalized.  You are suggesting that this article be either (1) replaced by two seperate articles, one treating Harnack in detail and one treating historical criticism in detail, or (2) the article should stay intact, but be supplemented by the two separate articles as described.  I agree that that would certainly be a great contribution to the mission here, but I'm probably not the right person to do that.  The gift which God has bestowed upon me, in the mystery of his wisdom, is very distinct and very limited and I try hard to recognize it for what it is and not overstep it.  That gift is the ability to plow through the caverns of massive verbosity (such as Karl Barth for instance!) and emerge with a tiny jewel called "THE ESSENCE."  I then take that jewel, add it to the other jewels I have found, and string them all together into a necklace with symmetry and balance, to create a single object of--hopefully--beauty as well as usefulness.  With Harnack the jewels are threefold: (a) he reversed the standard equation of authority, (b) he almost singlehandedly propagated what is still the standard in biblical scholarship, and (c) he believed that Christianity was obscuring a simple but profound truth at its own "core."  In my editorial mind, that's all that matters about Harnack.  To write a lengthy article on, for example, the life and times of Harnack would, for me, be tedious and dreary.  And it would feel essentially like plagiarism--an agonizing exercise in finding new phrases to rewrite everything my sources were saying.   

Secondly, as a writer/editor I'm very familiar with my strengths and weaknesses.  Using this article as an example I will make a statement that can be generalized.  You suggested (in your first note above) that this article be either (1) replaced by two seperate articles, one treating Harnack in detail and one treating historical criticism in detail, or (2) the article should stay intact, but be supplemented by the two separate articles as described.  I agree that that would certainly be a great contribution to the mission here, but I'm probably not the right person to do that.  The gift which God has bestowed upon me, in the mystery of his wisdom, is very distinct and very limited and I try hard to recognize it for what it is and not overstep it.  That gift is the ability to plow through the caverns of massive verbosity (such as Karl Barth for instance!) and emerge with a tiny jewel called "THE ESSENCE."  I then take that jewel, add it to the other jewels I have found, and string them all together into a necklace with symmetry and balance, to create a single object of--hopefully--beauty as well as usefulness.  With Harnack the jewels are threefold: (a) he reversed the standard equation of authority, (b) he almost singlehandedly propagated what is still the standard in biblical scholarship, and (c) he believed that Christianity was obscuring a simple but profound truth at its own "core."  In my editorial mind, that's all that matters about Harnack.  To write a lengthy article on, for example, the life and times of Harnack would, for me, be tedious and dreary.  And it would feel essentially like plagiarism--an agonizing exercise in finding new phrases to rewrite everything my sources were saying.   

The other day (in one of our dialogues) I denied being a "Harnackian."  Shortly after I posted that, I was thunderstruck by the realization (previously unconscious) that I, in fact, am a thoroughgoing Harnackian in two respects: (1) he is really the single most influential of all Christian theologians on my own life and thought, and (2) like Harnack, I am always in quest of the "kernel" of everything.  I suppose the reason this has gone unrealized for so long is because way back in my early studies, Harnack sort of unconsciously became a lens through which I subsequently studied everything else.  I was never looking '''AT''' the lens, just '''through''' it.

The other day (in one of our dialogues) I denied being a "Harnackian."  Shortly after I posted that, I was thunderstruck by the realization (previously unconscious) that I, in fact, am a thoroughgoing Harnackian in two respects: (1) he is really the single most influential of all Christian theologians on my own life and thought, and (2) like Harnack, I am always in quest of the "kernel" of everything.  I suppose the reason this has gone unrealized for so long is because way back in my early studies, Harnack sort of unconsciously became a lens through which I subsequently studied everything else.  I was never looking '''AT''' the lens, just '''through''' it.