Initial feedback on Confessional Documents section

Rick Brannan (Faithlife) said:

Fr Devin Roza said:

I am a little confused as to why you chose to change the categories a bit from the PG Systematic Theologies section. I was pretty happy, for example, with the Patristic / Medieval / Modern Catholic division. Why not use this division as well for this Guide? I would find that much more helpful than the "Ecumenical"?? division, especially as that could apply for modern documents as well as ancient.

One basic issue is that with creeds in particular, several volumes are compilations of creeds and other documents. And they include material from all different time periods, not just a particular era. The use of "Ecumenical" seems more appropriate because, as you note, it allows for more modern documents as well as ancient in the same resource.

But aren't you classifying the specific Creed / document / section of the book, and not the entire book itself?

In which case, using "Patristic" and "Medieval" should still be possible, and maybe you could then reserve "Ecumenical" for more modern-day cross-denominational creeds or declarations. 

Rick Brannan (Faithlife) said:

Fr Devin Roza said:

But aren't you classifying the specific Creed / document / section of the book, and not the entire book itself?

No, it's the resource itself that gets that level of classification.

OK. I hope you can consider the classification of Confessional Documents on an individual section of the book level for a future version.

While for Systematic Theologies classifying on a book level is fine, I think that for Confessional Documents the type of technology used to tag the Cultural Concepts or Ancient Literature could offer some important advantages.

Rick Brannan (Faithlife) said:

Fr Devin Roza said:

the type of technology used to tag the Cultural Concepts or Ancient Literature could offer some important advantages

Not disputed. But Cultural concepts was completely manual annotation by a team of up to three people for a relatively long period of time. Ancient Literature was a mix, but with Ancient Literature the grouping (Church Fathers, Josephus, Ancient Near-Eastern, etc.) is all resource-level.

Understood. I think it's the type of tagging, however, that over time will make more sense for Faithlife to take on, as you move little by little into the tagging not only of the Bible but of the more important writings in the history of Christianity. 

Could you explain a bit what is meant by Ecumenical? From the way the books are classified, I am guessing you are limiting it to books that just report the Creeds or documents with little or no interpretive comment? 

May I also suggest "The Sources of Catholic Dogma" be included? When Catholics think of a book that is a collection of confessional documents, the first book that comes to mind is very often Denzinger. 

Rick Brannan (Faithlife) said:

Fr Devin Roza said:

Could you explain a bit what is meant by Ecumenical?

Basically, when a document or set of documents includes one or more of the so-called "Ecumenical" creeds (e.g. Apostles Creed, Nicene, Athanaisian); or a document is claimed by a wide range of groups. From a chronological perspective, it essentially replaces the Patristic+Medieval in Systematic Theologies. Like everything else, it gets tricky quickly, largely because preserving Patristic+Medieval would mean classifying works that are neither with those labels. Using "Ecumenical" cues the language to the ecumenical creeds and prevents stuff written/composed in the modern era with being classified as something patristic or medieval.

With documents it's clear. Where it's not so clear to me is whether the Ecumenical title could or should extend beyond that.

To make my question more concrete, the place where it surprised me a bit was with Kelly's work, which is today used in so many universities and seminaries both Protestant and Catholic. What was the criteria used with these types of works?

Jonathan Haas said:

Fr Devin Roza said:

1. In order for it to appear in the Passage Guide, I had to add it manually. I think it should be on by default.

Hi Father Roza,

This has been fixed internally and will go out in an upcoming beta.

Thanks Jonathan!

MJ. Smith said:

Rick Brannan (Faithlife) said:

Fr Devin Roza said:

But aren't you classifying the specific Creed / document / section of the book, and not the entire book itself?

No, it's the resource itself that gets that level of classification.

Ouch! that explains some anomalies I saw with the 3 volumes of Schaff. And what would you do with Pelikan's Creeds ... which should be in Logos?

[Y] for Pelikan...

Along with the fantastic studies of Grillmeier.

Works of the academic level of Pelikan's, Grillmeier's, and Kelly's are of interest to all faith confessions... at least within academia.

I guess what I would really like to see in a PG section for Confessional Documents would be something like a list of Creeds or Documents which are relevant to a Biblical passage (along with commentaries on those creeds that mention those passages), organized by the date or date range of the document, sortable by date or by name of the creed / document.  

Then, what I would I drill down into is the specific Creed / confessional document to see the sections of the different creed / document or of the resources that comment on that creed / document and are relevant. 

So maybe for a passage you would see something like "Nicene Creed (325), Symbol of Chalcedon (451), Fourth Lateran Council (1215), etc." and then you could drill down into each one of those and see the relevant texts from the books and articles that deal with this. The focus is on the Confessional Documents themselves. The Confessional Documents themselves could be organized into Patristic, Medieval, and then the modern categories, as in the Systematic Theology.

Anyway, just dreaming out loud!

Thanks, and congrats to Rick and team as well for the documentation, which is well done and addresses the questions that came up in this thread well.