Squiggles on a Page

Historical events are similar to jots on a page. We can look at them. But if we do not know their meaning or significance, then it’s pointless to spend hours looking at them. Historical events are similar to untranslated letters on a page. When a historian writes a history, she translates those events, and with every translation interpretation is implicit. Actually, this seems to happen when any of us experience life. We translate experiences into languages we can understand, and in the process we do a large degree of interpretation. It goes without saying that there can be poor translations, poor interpretations of life. How then might we discern between an excellent and a weak translation? Continual scrutiny, dialogue, and argument within a community: tradition.

It’s often the case regarding history that we want to know what “actually happened.” We say we want snapshots or perhaps videos of particular historical events. However, that’s likely not what we always really need. It’s sometimes contested that the gospels, for example, are filtered events of some conjurers. The chronology is mashed and inconsistent, events are conflicting, and discourses involve an array of variability etc. Thus, we wish to know what “actually happened” regarding Jesus. However, I doubt we would be satisfied if we saw the pictures from what “actually happened,” just as I would be dissatisfied with my confusion if I looked down at some pages of Arabic not knowing what to make of it, not knowing the significance of the seemingly haphazard squiggles. I need more than those seemingly haphazard squiggles. I need to know their significance.

It’s an ironic thing that with the gospels we have what we need – i.e. an explanation of the significance of Jesus, yet we are dissatisfied because we say we actually don’t want the translated letters; we have grown accustom to saying that we want the untranslated letters that we can’t read. Personally, I would prefer to read those Arabic letters translated into a language I can understand; similarly, I would prefer for historical events to be translated by people who are aware of the significance of those events. But again, even if I were to have walked around with Jesus all those many years ago, I likely would not have understood what on earth I was witnessing (perhaps, see Philosophical Fragments).

Interpretation and the proper lenses to interpret historical events are needed. This, at least in part, seems to be the job of tradition, for it is within tradition that we consider those lenses with scrutiny, dialogue, and even argument. It is thereby within tradition that significance is discerned, and it was the traditions that gave shape to the gospels we have today that provide us with the significance of Jesus. Without those traditions, we would be staring cluelessly at squiggles on a page.