Once stated, this view or approach to New Testament studies will probably seem sufficiently taken-for-granted as to be worth criticizing, yet it is the view that I take.
The enemy of the fish is the bird. The bird soars high and sees far; its visual acuity is above reproach. However, the subject matter is the lake itself; the warp and woof of its floor, the flora and fauna which inhabit various depths, and of course also the shores of the lake and its outline on the surface. What is visible to the bird are those shores and that outline, but the fish knows so much more about the lake. And, occasionally, a fish is tricked into thinking it can be a bird, and jumps above the surface to catch a glimpse...at which point it is gobbled up by some swooping aviator, hungry for a meal.
The fish, in my mind, is a specialist. The bird is a generalist. Where the analogy breaks down, is that there are no true birds; no New Testament scholar can actually fly so high as to take in the whole sweep of the field with an objective, all-encompassing eye. Not only are there no Renaissance men any longer, who know enough about every science to be considered competent; there are no men who can keep up with the vast and growing amount of material being generated about every aspect of New Testament study and associated critical thought.
What does this imply? I think it implies, first of all, to be cautious of a certain type of writer who would offer a grand unified theory of Christian origins (a GUTCO). This type of writer typically is a jack of all trades, master of none. They offer us a single principle to explain everything. It is all a Roman farce in order to persuade the Jews to put down arms; no, it is all modeled after the dying and rising gods of the mystery religions; no, it is the wholly inerrant Word of God set down by the apostles of Christ. One gets the usual impression of these writers that they stumbled on one particular thing that seemed to provide the insight, and then applied this insight to everything without regard for the fit.
What else? Well, is there anyone who might be able to provide a bird's eye view with some credibility? I suggest: no, not a single one. We need to look at the collected efforts of the various schools of fish within the lake to understand their surroundings, and piece together a topography of the lake that pays respect to the findings of each specialist in their own domain.
What this means in practice is that the generalist, even the generalist writing on the person and ideas of Paul in general, must take appreciation of, say, the several recent weighty commentaries that come down in favor of the plausible authenticity of the Pastoral Epistles to the apostle Paul. Not that he is necessarily going to follow their lead blindly, but at least he must be aware of the goings-on in the particular areas of study which would be relevant to his general interest. Yet very often, generalists rely on a kind of 'consensus reality' that has not yet been established, such as the inauthenticity of the Pastoral Epistles.
So the question I am led to consider, which I had not really been looking towards so much as just happened to dawn on me, if we as fish in the lake of NT studies cannot get a bird's-eye view, and if we at the same time wish to make some statements about the 'consensus realities' of the communities of fish in this lake...how would we go about doing so?
I don't suppose I have in mind some voting scheme such as was settled upon by the Jesus Seminar, as more likely a consensus scheme that would be found in a Quaker meeting, or even more appropriately, a Japanese business setting. I am told this description of the Japanese practice by an online poster:
People sign/acknowledge memos with a seal that stamps the symbols for their name on the page. The discussions goes round and round, in meetings and on paper, and the decision gets refined and revised. At some point there's a perceivable interval with no new input and a "final" memo goes round. People who agree with the decision sign it with their seal. People who disagree don't sign it. People who can live with it but don't support it may chose to sign it with the sen al sideways instead of right-side-up. Eventually there's a peer pressure point if the decision has a fair amount of support. It becomes more and more difficult for the final hold-outs as the memo keeps coming back around to them. If the person feels that "I disagree with this and think it's a mistake, but I'll support the group and do my best to make it work", then they may finally stamp the memo with an upside-down seal-stamp.
In short, can the unpapal conclave (cf. J. P. Meier) be anything other than a convenient fiction? Can we make it work?
Or are we, the fish, far too myopic in our range of vision to be able to, so to speak, see eye to eye on much of anything? In which case, what would be a better way to "introduce" students to the New Testament--a way better than the typical practice of instructing them (cf. almost any NT introduction) in dates, literary relationships, and further "assured conclusions" of scholarship?
Perhaps what students of the NT need, when getting their feet wet, much more than some bird's-eye view of the subject, are some practical lessons on swimming in the water and peering through the murk. In other words, some lessons on method.
It is from these musings that I am inclined to write more about "A Fish-Eye View of the New Testament," and therein, as a layman speaking to other laymen (and also a few peering fish), explain how it is that I have gotten along with the fish in the lake, learned from them, and occasionally seen some glimmerings in the muck that were not pointed out to me (though, it is likely, passed by unnoticed before the eye of one with, so to speak, bigger fish to fry). Since I am not one of the big fish myself, I pause to consider whether it should be called "a guppy's view" instead. Oh well. I like the "Fish-Eye" title nicely.
