Is this a Christian hermeneutics forum?

Question

I find that people with traditional Christian povs are apparently given the licence to be parenthetic in their questions.

However, when I ask my question with parenthetic explanation on my Jewish angle, the question is edited to make it "neutral".

This forum seems to be tacitly biased towards being a Christian forum.

I find that Jewish answers and opinions are required to be backed by "please give references from rabbinic sources", whereas Christian pov answers are allowed on an excursion of non-traditional brain-hashing of ideas. As though everything coming from Jew should/must have "peior rabbinic opinion/approval", while a Christian answer can have a free pulpit without any backing.

Also, asking a basic question, questions coming from a Jewish pov seems to be whacked from the knees down, like invalidating the whole point of the question by first presenting the Christian pov to correct the Jewish pov first.

Are you able to assure that Jewish answers/opinions that are contradictory to Christian beliefs are not voted down for their being unchristian rather than for their quality of opinions? That there is no bullying in the forum?

Answer 1

People will vote however they want to vote. We can't ensure anything in that regard. Apart from some particular exceptions like serial voting, there is little that can be done to moderate votes. If you feel that votes are not being placed as they should be, perhaps the best solution would be to vote. Your own profile shows a mere 23 votes, so there is a lot of room for you to impact voting on the site still. Our per-question/answer vote totals are often not large, so your own individual vote really does have an impact.

Your question makes a lot of statements that cry out for examples. For instance, you write:

However, when I ask my question with parenthetic explanation on my Jewish angle, the question is edited to make it "neutral".

A link to an edit like this would be helpful along with a link to a question you think is being asked from a traditional Christian angle and is not being edited. Our stated values include welcoming a wide range of world views. However, it's hard to address shortcomings in this area when things are left in terms of generalities, rather than giving specific examples.

Answer 2

More Explanation is Better

It is a fine balance to express one's presuppositions in the question/answer without giving too much background (since there is a lot of background behind each of our views).

Using your question as an example, Jack (who I do happen to know is a Christian) edited out your opening line:

We know that tradition has it that Satan is an over-zealous servant of the LORD.

Now I see two issues here: (1) since we are all "anonymous" technically on this site, Jack may or may not have known you were coming from a Jewish perspective (I would not, as I have not interacted enough to know that is where you come from). And (2) you included a "we," which implies something about your reader that may not be true. I think (2) is probably more the reason it was edited, though (1) may have been a reason also.

I would not object to you reediting your question, and saying something such as:

My Jewish tradition has it that Satan is an over-zealous servant of the LORD.

You might want to further qualify who/what you take "Satan" to be. These are clarifying aspects of your presuppositions, and those are perfectly valid as long as you keep it localized to a "my" type statement. (I often clarify in my answers that I come from some particular perspective that relates to that answer). That gives us more context for your question.

Don't Expect Just a Jewish Presuppositional Answer

So now, as a Christian answering, he/she may challenge the presupposition to set forth their answer, but it becomes incumbent upon them to make a case against your presupposition before then further answering the question. They should not merely dismiss your presupposition.

Of course, a Jewish answer may role with the presupposition and answer accordingly.

You may or may not vote up a Christian answer, based on how well they have handled at least making their case against your presupposition. I would assume you would not mark it as "Accepted" unless you were swayed to the Christian point of view regarding the presupposition and the answer.

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That is the essence of how I understand the site is to operate in our mixed tradition realm. Both questions and answers need as much clarifying information about the presuppositions involved as necessary to help in answering the question, and all such presuppositions should not be taken for granted as "we" statements, but rather you as an individual, or "we" in clarifying the group referred to (in which case, having a reference that would "prove" you are not the only of that group to think that way may be helpful).

Answer 3

Thanks for coming to meta with this - that is the constructive thing to do and if this is a misunderstanding, it gives us the chance to establish that.

I think you are referring to your question on Numbers 22:22 that I edited like this:

My edit comment was: "Removed tangential comment about tradition and de-capitalised 'satan' in translation", and I'd like to try and explain my motivation for the edit further as it's caused you some concern.

Firstly I wasn't aware you were coming from a Jewish POV, and I wasn't trying to neutralize your POV regardless - my first thought was that the question needed to be rescued or closed as "unclear what you are asking". So after trying to understand what you were asking, I edited to try express it in clearer language by removing what I thought was tangential and adjusting the capitalization of "Satan" in a way that I thought was less leading: I've obviously got your intent wrong, for which I apologize - but I knew I might get it wrong and edited anyway, because we need clear questions and we need to work together collaboratively to achieve that. I encourage you to re-edit the question to make your intent more clear, and I'd encourage anyone else to subsequently edit again to make your language more clear if necessary!

Apart from that I'd just be re-iterating what's been said already in the other two answers. So, please bring your own framework, whatever it is, but work with us to work together with the site and the community to communicate your questions as clearly as possible so we can get you the most useful answers!