Feel free to describe the meaning of the text, but please don't prescribe it to your readers

Question

I am using my own answer in this question because it was easy to pick on my own issues than others (I'm trying to make a point, not go on a witch hunt). While I think good answers will also follow this, they could stand without doing so.

For instance, allow me to critique my own answer. In my last paragraph of the 'Grammar' section of my response, I wrote:

ἦρκεν (he has taken up/set aside) is a perfect active indicative verb, and thus our record of debt ("certificate of indebtedness") has indeed come to be set aside (or taken away).

I added emphasis on the word that illustrates the issue. I wrote in first person: 'our.' But Paul didn't write this letter to me or to the readers of this website (not to mention that this also assumes the reader is a Christian). He wrote it to Christians in first-century Colossae, a small Phrygian city.

Since I consider myself to be a Christian, I believe that I can rightly apply this text to myself. However, to do so is going beyond describing the text itself and prescribing it to a contemporary audience. I could easily defend this assertion by arguing that Paul is writing to Christians about topics that are applicable beyond the first century, but this site is not Christian. A Jewish or other non-Christian reader would not believe that this passage is talking about him/her. By using first person plural language, I am alienating this reader and subtly imposing my prescription of the text upon him or her.

From a scholarly perspective and from a site scope perspective, the question I answered is about the language in a specific text that was written to a particular audience at a fixed time in history. Applying the text to my readers is uncalled for and does not add to the answer. This is subtle, but it is also very important—and it happens all the time on this site.

Using first person plural language when referencing the audiences of ancient texts moves from describing the text itself to prescribing norms that are expressed as binding on readers and therefore imposes this application upon the reader.

Example

Here is another example to clarify this, it was given on another meta question so I'll use it here:

• Does Hebrews 6:4-6 imply that we can lose our salvation? There is an inherent imposition upon the reader of an assumption in this question, namely that the epistle of Hebrews is applicable to the reader today, who is presumably a Christian. Scholars don't agree on the audience of this text aside from (mostly) agreeing that it was written to Christians in the first century CE. But to apply it to your readers shifts the question from being being descriptive to being prescriptive (s/he is also assuming the reader is a Christian by the use of a first person plural pronoun). It could be reworded like so: "Does Hebrews 6:4-6 imply that the recipients could lose their salvation?"

Is the prescription of a given text to people beyond the text's author's original intended audience undesirable? I believe it is.

Answer 1

It is undesirable to speak prescriptively about the text in such a way that it implies norms that are expressed as binding on readers. The OP can make the exact same points using first person singular language to make it clear that s/he is talking about him/herself without imposing beliefs upon the reader, or by using third person language (e.g. "Christians believe..."). Therefore I agree with the following:

Using first person plural language when referencing the audiences of ancient texts moves from describing the text itself to prescribing norms that are expressed as binding on readers and therefore imposes this application upon the reader.

I believe this should not be welcome in questions or answers. Describing one's own perspective or that of a contemporary reading community is fine, but prescribing it upon the reader is not desirable.

Answer 2

I'm worried this question is effectively too broad to be answered in it's own right.

There are at least three distinct questions that overlap with this one:

• Do we want NPOV?
• Do we want 'academic' language?
• Do we want doctrine/application (anywhere)?

The greatest focus is on the latter, but rather than trying to answer any one of those here (they have all been addressed elsewhere with a greater or lesser degree of agreement and finality), I'd like to make an effort to address what I see as the assumptions behind the question.

Does the author's intended audience matter?

Yes and no. In one sense the OP is the intended audience and this network is built on answering questions: not theoretical questions that could be asked, but real answerable questions that have been asked. In another sense this isn't a private conversation between the OP and those who answer, it is public and we want it to benefit others who have similar questions. We are trying to make the internet a better place! Rather than specifically asking who the OP's intended audience is, I think we just need to play to those two actual audiences.

Can we evacuate a question or answer of all doctrinal purpose or application

This question has also been addressed before in other ways, and again I argue that you can choose a philosophy or manner of understanding and analysing the texts and elevate that to the position of academic/correct/non-doctrinal but the very act of doing so is a doctrinal one. In so doing we are implicitly saying that those who don't, won't or can't are not experts.

Furthermore, if we decide this is what we want to do, we open up endless debate about exactly what constitutes doctrine, for example, from the question you link to:

Exegetically, without bringing theology to the text, is Paul stating that all their sins, including future sins were forgiven in Colossians 2:13-14?

Is the explicit suggestion that we can address any text without a framework or theology a doctrinal assumption? Is the OP equating transgression and sin an implicit theological/doctrinal assertion? (after all the word 'sin' isn't even present in his own quote of the text in question)