What are some of the ethical issues that you are grappling with in your research? What are some of the ways in which you are responding to these questions?
The ethical issue I have found myself grappling with is how best to interpret texts across historical and cultural contexts. Like anyone else, I know that my reading and interpretation of a text is influenced by the way I see and think about the world around me. There is a risk of distorting or even misrepresenting the meaning if I accidentally impose modern day assumptions on the text. Given the history of my primary sources, I am also aware of the fact that these translations are similarly influenced and have gone through multiple layers of changes and influences over the past centuries. I am responding to this by doing my best to do some background research on the ancient cultures as well as looking at how other scholars respond to certain translations or alternate versions and interpretations.
As you continue your research, have you considered alternative viewpoints in your investigation? If so, how have these alternative viewpoints enriched or changed your project?
This past week, an alternative viewpoint that has come up in my research is the idea of eschatology as a form of hope. Typically, when we think about grand phrases such as 'apocalypse' and 'the end of the world', it’s hard to associate that with any type of optimism. A future focused on what we now think of as the modern day apocalypse is to be avoided at all costs and endings are seen as terrible things. Although Moltmann’s theory of hope is primarily aimed at the Christian apocalypse of the Book of Revelation, it has applications beyond that. It has given me a new perspective on thinking about endings, their meaning, cause, and aftermath, and the ways in which hope and renewal can be found in and through destruction.