What people take
from a moment is what matters, not what people intentionally put in a
text. Even in judicial terms, when
deciding how to interpret the constitution, the literally versus the adaptability
to what is going on today. We perforce
and there’s a tension about how to interpret the text. Once text is written down it cannot be
changed. Things cannot change as easily,
not fluid with the society because once you write them down. If we take the Bible seriously as exact word
for word and even other religious text there are many things that are supposed
to be taken verbatim and the fact that something was accepted at one point in
time is what we all have to deal with.
Some things might seem ridiculous especially the further removed we are
in time and culture from what happened. A text cannot make a judgment about its
audience (can help or harm) when we don’t know what a text means, we can’t
interpret it then we call on the author, but now if we don’t understand
something that was written too long ago, we can’t do that. The text has a permanence that outlives even
the life of the author.
My notion of
extrinsic proofs evolved after reading this chapter because I now understand
the importance that our culture places on ideas such as testimony and the eye
witness. You want to cite authority that
is universally recognized.
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