More on engagement: Begin by reading
(Originally published at What's Wrong With the World. Link to original post at 'permalink' below.)
Dr. Licona has asked Tom Gilson to publish his response to Tom's call for engaging with my ideas--which is to say his reason for refusing any engagement with my critique. It is here. Tom asked me if I would like to respond in my own blog venue, so herewith a few brief points.
1) It is interesting to me that Dr. Licona appears to be indicating that he has not even read my critique of his work. In describing the amount of time that would be required to engage and indicating that he has no intention of taking that time, he says, "Since her blogs on my book are very long, I would begin by reading them, which would take a few hours." This is really striking, especially given that Licona doesn't appear to think that this is in any way an embarrassing admission.
Perhaps there is just some misunderstanding here, and he has read some significant portion but not the whole. Perhaps that is all that he means. Or perhaps he has read them but means that he'd have to read them again, though that isn't what he says. Since he complains elsewhere in the post about my "tone," he appears to have read something or other. But what? This line certainly gives the impression that he has not read with serious attention to argument. Elsewhere in the response Licona says that Tom and others might think that
I should spend the required time considering Lydia’s criticisms carefully and either revising my position or clarifying and defending it. I do not share their sense of necessity.
So which part of this does he have no intention of doing at all? Has he done any of it? Does he plan to? How about at least considering my criticisms carefully? Revising his own position if he's wrong? Yes, those would be a good idea. Is it just the final "and" part he feels no necessity to do (clarifying and defending), though he has done or is going to do the other parts?
Yes, I acknowledge that he would have to read my material if he were going to respond to it. That should go without saying, but not everybody appears to agree, as indicated by numerous Facebook exchanges in which people disagree with me without reading either Dr. Licona or me. So I should say that I'm glad Dr. Licona and I agree that he would, in fact, have to read my material before responding to it.
But as a scholar Dr. Licona should be planning to become at least substantially familiar with my material anyway, even if he has no time to respond or to read every word.
He says, "The issue then for me is whether Lydia’s criticisms of my recent book justify my engagement. I do not think that they do."
It's somewhat astounding if he is confident that my criticisms do not "justify [his] engagement" without reading them. Again, not necessarily every word, but I've organized my work in a way that would make it fairly easy to read a representative sample. As I often tell people, they can start with the wrap-up post and browse from there to other posts according to the synopses. Has Dr. Licona even done that much?
Scholars in the humanities are adept at assimilating fairly large quantities of material, reading quickly, perhaps occasionally skimming, reading some portions word-for-word, and the like.
If he literally has not attempted to read what I have written to any significant degree, I am afraid this should be a cause of some concern, as it betrays a lack of interest in finding out if, perhaps, he has made serious mistakes. I have given arguments to that effect. Aren't arguments what scholars care about?
Of course I cannot force Dr. Licona to read what I've written. But if he doesn't read it, how can he know that what I've argued is wrong and that it isn't even worth engaging with? As an analytic epistemologist and probability theorist, I have some information concerning epistemic issues such as simplicity, complexity, testimony, independence, reliability, burden of proof, and the like, and these all come to the foreground in these debates. Disambiguating terms is also something I do a fair bit of in my field, and it's a very important matter in these areas of New Testament studies. I'm also trained in evaluating the force of arguments.
It behooves Dr. Licona to acquaint himself with serious critiques of his work; as of now, as far as I can tell, mine is one of the only critiques of any kind out there and the most detailed and informed review that includes criticism.
Refusing to become directly familiar with serious criticisms of one's work by a serious scholarly opponent is a profoundly unscholarly decision. If that's the decision Dr. Licona is making, I urge him to reconsider it.
2) Dr. Licona’s repeated references to “what would happen”--to endless debates and so forth--are not addressed to the exchange in Phil. Christi, which would be limited in scope and which was the immediate occasion of Tom Gilson's post. Licona mentions this only briefly to dismiss it. It’s certainly true that it would take a chunk of time, as I acknowledged in my original post on Dr. Licona’s refusal. There I expressly said that he doesn’t owe me an exchange, and I reiterate that here.
But let’s keep focused: Tom has not called for an endless exchange but for some serious engagement with the ideas in question. Tom has said that he thinks there should be visible scholarly engagement by Dr. Licona, not unlimited back-and-forth. So sweeping predictions about what would happen later or what Lydia would do are not to the point.
3) The reference to Mike's personal friend Kurt Jaros as offering to debate me, and my alleged decline of that suggestion, is quite pointless. As Dr. Licona seems to realize, I have already interacted with Kurt at length on Facebook on these topics. (There is, however, a slight error in Mike's post. I am not actually a member of the CAA Facebook group, though Tim is. I have engaged Kurt on Tim's Facebook "wall" and in personal correspondence.) My husband, Tim, has interacted with him with great patience and at length concerning Mike's work, in semi-public forums on Facebook and in private e-mail.
We have tried very hard to engage with him, spending many hours of our time. There are numerous witnesses to the sheer amount of time and effort we have spent in exchanges with him on semi-public forums concerning Mike's work.
What emerged in these exchanges is that Kurt, in contrast to Dr. Licona, does not have a well-thought-out position. Nor did he, when we tried to engage with him, have a good knowledge of Dr. Licona’s own work, of Licona’s position, or of the arguments on which it is based. Nor has he shown an acquaintance with my arguments on the other side. This has made him an extremely poor advocate of Mike's position, to say the least. Even after we gave him more information individually (which he could have easily gotten from my posts but apparently did not), he did not show himself willing and able to assimilate it and to represent Dr. Licona’s position in a clear and accurate fashion. In numerous ways he has not proven to be a remotely fruitful partner for useful dialogue on these subjects.
To give just one salient example, Kurt has insisted that Dr. Licona’s position is that the authors of the gospels were merely "apathetic about some details.” Every word of this characterization is grossly inaccurate. Dr. Licona clearly argues that the authors went out of their way to create certain literary/narrative impressions deliberately. Quite a number of the examples in his book clearly go beyond mere “details,” extending to inventing entire incidents and sayings in some cases. This could obviously not be done by means of mere "apathy" nor would it merely be a matter of "details." All of this has been pointed out to Kurt repeatedly, personally, and all of it was already amply illustrated in my series, but he has stuck to his misleading characterization. When one cannot even get a clear and accurate proposition to be discussed on the table in the first instance, one is stymied.
One place where Dr. Licona and I can agree is in urging people to read his work. Indeed, it often seems that the people who most need to read and understand his position in detail are his own supporters! I've been astonished and disheartened to see how many of Licona's most ardent supporters, as well as those who argue strenuously at the metalevel that there is no important issue at stake, do not even know what his position is.
I would also urge people (Dr. Licona included) to look in addition at a serious argument on the other side, and I've done careful work to provide that argument. Scholars and even interested non-scholars should attempt to avoid confirmation bias by reading arguments on both sides of an issue. My work can even provide a lead-in to Dr. Licona's work for those interested.
My intent has never been to issue some kind of general challenge to debate some supporter of Dr. Licona or other. Indeed, my critique of Dr. Licona is not chiefly intended to egg on anyone to a debate as if public, formal debate per se were an end in itself. It isn't. Knowing and teaching the truth is the ultimate goal, and the proximate goal is serious engagement with arguments on the issues. Dr. Licona, a scholar, has written a book. Dr. Licona has multiple lectures and debates available on-line. He has a substantial scholarly body of work. It is his work and his position that are in question. I, another scholar with relevant expertise, have carefully read his entire recent book, familiarized myself with much of his work in other venues, and have written a careful, serious, considered, scholarly critique of his work.
It would be good if others interested in these issues would become acquainted with that critique and with Dr. Licona’s work and give the matter serious thought, since the issues are important. Care is what we need to exercise if we want to know the truth.
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